It is clear that we need both apps and documents in web browsers. Yes yes "web", "hateoas" and all that, but it didn't materalise in practice and is therefore irrelevant.
So maybe we can have <!DOCTYPE app>, which lets you use a new set of APIs focussed on applications, but is otherwise in the same "shape". JSX type syntax.
This way it's easy for say newspapers to offer both an app format as well as a "lite" document format. Instead of their current offering which is a app shoehorned into a document and then a messy lite version.
Users who use noscript can, instead of blocking scripts wholesale and then whitelisting the good ones, request by default the lite document format. i.e <!DOCTYPE html>.
or maybe just stop trying to force the round peg in a square hole. an application is surely not a document. they open documents. its conceptual, but it would make your life so much easier if you stopped trying to make a fully fledged platform out of what was essentially a rich text document viewer. java has since come along and given you pretty much write once, run anywhere and close to instant deployment with its applets
Web as a deployment platform has too many advantages for it to be ignored for distributing _anything_.
We don't have to force a round peg into the square hole <!DOCTYPE html>. Let's make a new round hole <!DOCTYPE app> but keep using the amazing deployment platform.
If it was, it would reflect in reality. But the web wins the "where shall we deploy this" fight every single time. For good reason. You mentioned java, People preferred literally electron over java.
So maybe we can have <!DOCTYPE app>, which lets you use a new set of APIs focussed on applications, but is otherwise in the same "shape". JSX type syntax.
This way it's easy for say newspapers to offer both an app format as well as a "lite" document format. Instead of their current offering which is a app shoehorned into a document and then a messy lite version.
Users who use noscript can, instead of blocking scripts wholesale and then whitelisting the good ones, request by default the lite document format. i.e <!DOCTYPE html>.