> Web APIs are in essence becoming an abstraction layer between OS and applications.
Terrible ones at that. In native applications you can bypass abstraction layers when you need it. In a browser you are restricted to a almost comically crippled version of what any native APIs provide.
Look at the <canvas> API. It's fairly modern, and yet I can't even turn off premultiplied colors, which I would need for doing even semi-decent image processing.
server sockets? udp? no dice.
even the most primitive file management? with the file API i can open individal files now. But can I grant a website access to some cordoned-off subtree of the filesystem? No. Which in turn gives rise to "store everything in the cloud" mentality, because there are no alternatives.
What are those? If you're talking about alpha, that can be bypassed.
> server sockets? udp? no dice.
The web platform doesn't allow protocols which bypass its security model, sure. But you do have other ways to communicate, WebSocket (over TCP) and WebRTC (over UDP).
> But can I grant a website access to some cordoned-off subtree of the filesystem?
Terrible ones at that. In native applications you can bypass abstraction layers when you need it. In a browser you are restricted to a almost comically crippled version of what any native APIs provide.
Look at the <canvas> API. It's fairly modern, and yet I can't even turn off premultiplied colors, which I would need for doing even semi-decent image processing.
server sockets? udp? no dice.
even the most primitive file management? with the file API i can open individal files now. But can I grant a website access to some cordoned-off subtree of the filesystem? No. Which in turn gives rise to "store everything in the cloud" mentality, because there are no alternatives.