We have HTML now, which is a great advancement. Don't forget about that.

zackbrown · on May 18, 2024

HTML was a huge advancement, but it is likely a local maximum.

The HTML / CSS stack comes with significant ergonomic hurdles (layout / positioning / "creative fidelity") and performance hurdles (inescapable GC pauses, constant overhead of constraint-solving layout system, DOM overhead in general.)

Can we do better? IMO the future GUI lingua franca is deeply inspired by HTML and will stand on the shoulders of that giant, but will:

  - Build to LLVM native apps as well as websites
  - Include React-style templating as a foundational concern
  - Be fundamentally designed for visual building (think of the ergonomic differences between Webflow & Figma — if "an HTML" existed that "a Figma" could read & write natively, building front-ends would take a quantum leap)

WebAssembly makes all of this possible while still extending the Web and browser ecosystems.