Even today, web apps do not rival the desktop apps of a decade or two ago. Yes, there has been some advancement, but web apps are still inferior in every respect.
The performance of web apps is much worse than that of desktop apps, for example. Complex desktop apps written in C, VB, and PowerBuilder ran just fine on 486 or early Pentium systems that have a very small fraction of the processing power and resources of a modern system. Yet it's still common to see web apps in general perform quite poorly on these modern systems, while doing less than the mid-1990s apps did.
Developers at least have some choices when it comes to desktop apps. They can use a multitude of different languages, along with a variety of different libraries and frameworks. This is a much richer ecosystem than what we get with web development today, where you're basically stuck with JavaScript, or a language that's nothing more than a slight veneer over JavaScript (CoffeeScript, TypeScript, and even Dart). Don't even bother mentioning asm.js or Emscripten. Asm.js is merely a rancid subset of JavaScript, and Emscripten is experimental at best.
The portability argument isn't even valid. Languages like C, C++ and Python offer superb portability today, especially if used with one of the extremely cross-platform GUI toolkits available for making desktop apps. Given that almost every major JavaScript implementation today is written in C and/or C++, the portability of JavaScript is inherently no better than than of C and C++.
The ability to communicate over a network isn't anything special, either. All sorts of desktop apps have been doing this for several decades now.
The distribution argument also isn't valid. The package management systems offered by most Linux distributions, for example, are far nicer to work with. They make it trivial to find and install native apps, and unlike web apps, you get to choose if and when you upgrade, rather than having changes forced upon you time and time again.
The sandbox argument is also irrelevant. Various mainframe and UNIX-like OSes have offered several different ways of jailing or otherwise isolating processes for many, many years now. It's nothing new. But unlike the browser, they give real control over how much access is allowed, and without imposing horrid performance loss.
All of these limitations of web apps come together to make for a user experience that isn't enjoyable.
At best, web apps can imitate desktop apps, usually at a quality and user experience level 10 to 15 years behind desktop apps. It's objectively incorrect to claim that web apps "rival" desktop apps, when all of the evidence shows that they clearly do not.
Parent specifically stated that modern frontend development tools pale in comparison to VB6. You couldn't write a VB6 program and run it on Mac, Linux, a random smartphone, tablet, eReader, hell, even video game systems like the Sony PSP have had web browsers and been able to load web apps for a while now.
You throw out "the distribution argument also isn't valid" as though firing up a Linux package manager or going to download some binary program on Windows/Mac is at all comparable to simply clicking a URL in an email. Not to mention the security implications of desktop distribution.
No, the mediums are not comparable. Your rebuttals consist of "your argument isn't valid" but offer no counterpoints, rather, they simply describe the way desktop development is done these days. It's fine and dandy that you think desktop programming is the state of the art, but there are vast differences between web and desktop environments, and it's why things like the Chromebook can exist.
There are many people these days for whom the internet is the computer.
Lets say we've reached this plateau where we can run these moderately limited apps almost everywhere, in a browser. Great! We've been here for some time now though, since HTTP/HTML has always run anywhere a browser could be found... All you're saying is that we have browsers in more places now. That is pretty fantastic, no kidding. There's still nothing wrong with saying that the foundation it all runs on mostly sucks for building application front ends.
What's wrong with wanting better? How awesome would it be to have a safe, well engineered browser that wasn't limited to just HTTP, HTML, CSS and Javascript?
Give me a full duplex network stack, native graphics and broader input controls. Give me file access and a multi-language runtime! Sandbox it all, I don't care!! Microsoft has done all of this (exceedingly well, in a very short time) with Silverlight which can run dynamically downloaded C#, F#, VB and Python modules on Windows, OS X and (limitedly) on Linux. It could definitely be done better by a more open group.
Now Silverlight was _actually_ innovative and modern. As opposed to 20-ish year old broken script and mark-up languages that have to be backwards-compatible.
If "web apps are still inferior in every respect," why do we find ourselves using web apps more and more and desktop apps less and less? Should I expect to download the next gen of great applications from a cool shareware site like in the good old days of a decade or two ago?
Web apps have won the desktop, at least for now. It's what people want, and it's what people are getting, mostly for the reasons cited above. Mobile, now that's a more interesting story.
> why do we find ourselves using web apps more and more and desktop apps less and less?
Do we?
> Web apps have won the desktop
Tell that to my text editor, photoshop or audio editor. Or my email client - or even the native Evernote application. For all of these there's no serious web version.
This comment might sound snarky but I'm honestly trying to think of what web apps I regularly use. And I can't come up with one.
The performance of web apps is much worse than that of desktop apps, for example. Complex desktop apps written in C, VB, and PowerBuilder ran just fine on 486 or early Pentium systems that have a very small fraction of the processing power and resources of a modern system. Yet it's still common to see web apps in general perform quite poorly on these modern systems, while doing less than the mid-1990s apps did.
Developers at least have some choices when it comes to desktop apps. They can use a multitude of different languages, along with a variety of different libraries and frameworks. This is a much richer ecosystem than what we get with web development today, where you're basically stuck with JavaScript, or a language that's nothing more than a slight veneer over JavaScript (CoffeeScript, TypeScript, and even Dart). Don't even bother mentioning asm.js or Emscripten. Asm.js is merely a rancid subset of JavaScript, and Emscripten is experimental at best.
The portability argument isn't even valid. Languages like C, C++ and Python offer superb portability today, especially if used with one of the extremely cross-platform GUI toolkits available for making desktop apps. Given that almost every major JavaScript implementation today is written in C and/or C++, the portability of JavaScript is inherently no better than than of C and C++.
The ability to communicate over a network isn't anything special, either. All sorts of desktop apps have been doing this for several decades now.
The distribution argument also isn't valid. The package management systems offered by most Linux distributions, for example, are far nicer to work with. They make it trivial to find and install native apps, and unlike web apps, you get to choose if and when you upgrade, rather than having changes forced upon you time and time again.
The sandbox argument is also irrelevant. Various mainframe and UNIX-like OSes have offered several different ways of jailing or otherwise isolating processes for many, many years now. It's nothing new. But unlike the browser, they give real control over how much access is allowed, and without imposing horrid performance loss.
All of these limitations of web apps come together to make for a user experience that isn't enjoyable.
At best, web apps can imitate desktop apps, usually at a quality and user experience level 10 to 15 years behind desktop apps. It's objectively incorrect to claim that web apps "rival" desktop apps, when all of the evidence shows that they clearly do not.