I get that many could be static pages, but you’re comparing web vs desktop. And in that case, I prefer web most of the time. Why? It works the same everywhere, and I can probably access it just fine on my phone without having to get their mobile app, which probably has fewer features and more telemetry.
Web doesn’t make sense for everything, but it’s far better than desktop apps for relatively simple use cases. If the app isn’t performance sensitive and doesn’t need to store a ton of data, web is my preferred platform, especially since I’m a Linux user and would likely need to run the app through WINE instead.
Not desktop. Native. You can build native apps for smartphones and pretty much anything. Web comes into play when you decide you won’t build native version of what you want. In some cases that is guided by thoughts like “I know web will fit this project. I know the platform and will remember to keep memory and internet usage low”, but in most cases it’s about “no idea what that startup is about, but I know some AngularJS and they said I can use AWS so that’ll do”.
Similar thing is happening now with Unreal Engine 5. The difference between devs and webdevs became very similar to the difference between coding and vibe coding.
and doesn’t need to store a ton of data
I know by data you mean “data I care about as a dev” but that should also include data that is actually processed and saved on user’s device. And webapps are notoriously bad at keeping their caches and data usage low.
There is no difference, webdev is someone who solves problems with web tech, mobile dev is someone who does mobile apps, embedded dev works with low level components, etc. It’s all development, and often the two will mix.
For example, I worked at a startup using C for embedded stuff, Go for the server stuff, and web tech for the FE. Rust wasn’t out yet, so C was the best option for interfacing with the board components (in this case a math module for our signal processing), Go was a good mix of performance and ease of training new devs, and a web FE was the lowest barrier to getting our customers using our product (basically a high end IOT device). We built a small native FE for certain simulations, and eventually moved it to a server with a web FE.
At my current role, we build a reporting and simulation app for a niche industry. We do everything from simple forms to 3D rendering to simulations that take hours to complete (most are 15-45min). Our customers use crappy laptops, so doing the processing locally isn’t an option (they probably don’t have enough RAM anyway), so we’re going to need a server. Because of that, we decided to build it as a web app. We still have native components (some simulations use C++, another was Fortran until recently, etc), and they’re maintained by Ph.Ds in our field because the hard part isn’t the coding (our JS specialists could handle that, they’ve built a 3D app in the last few months with complex transformations and calculations due to business login needs), but knowing the math behind it all, hence the researchers.
Not all web apps are overengineered crap because they hired a dev team to build a static site, there are apps like the two I mentioned that do interesting things and happen to use web technologies.
What’s wrong with webapps?
I get that many could be static pages, but you’re comparing web vs desktop. And in that case, I prefer web most of the time. Why? It works the same everywhere, and I can probably access it just fine on my phone without having to get their mobile app, which probably has fewer features and more telemetry.
Web doesn’t make sense for everything, but it’s far better than desktop apps for relatively simple use cases. If the app isn’t performance sensitive and doesn’t need to store a ton of data, web is my preferred platform, especially since I’m a Linux user and would likely need to run the app through WINE instead.
Not desktop. Native. You can build native apps for smartphones and pretty much anything. Web comes into play when you decide you won’t build native version of what you want. In some cases that is guided by thoughts like “I know web will fit this project. I know the platform and will remember to keep memory and internet usage low”, but in most cases it’s about “no idea what that startup is about, but I know some AngularJS and they said I can use AWS so that’ll do”.
Similar thing is happening now with Unreal Engine 5. The difference between devs and webdevs became very similar to the difference between coding and vibe coding.
I know by data you mean “data I care about as a dev” but that should also include data that is actually processed and saved on user’s device. And webapps are notoriously bad at keeping their caches and data usage low.
There is no difference, webdev is someone who solves problems with web tech, mobile dev is someone who does mobile apps, embedded dev works with low level components, etc. It’s all development, and often the two will mix.
For example, I worked at a startup using C for embedded stuff, Go for the server stuff, and web tech for the FE. Rust wasn’t out yet, so C was the best option for interfacing with the board components (in this case a math module for our signal processing), Go was a good mix of performance and ease of training new devs, and a web FE was the lowest barrier to getting our customers using our product (basically a high end IOT device). We built a small native FE for certain simulations, and eventually moved it to a server with a web FE.
At my current role, we build a reporting and simulation app for a niche industry. We do everything from simple forms to 3D rendering to simulations that take hours to complete (most are 15-45min). Our customers use crappy laptops, so doing the processing locally isn’t an option (they probably don’t have enough RAM anyway), so we’re going to need a server. Because of that, we decided to build it as a web app. We still have native components (some simulations use C++, another was Fortran until recently, etc), and they’re maintained by Ph.Ds in our field because the hard part isn’t the coding (our JS specialists could handle that, they’ve built a 3D app in the last few months with complex transformations and calculations due to business login needs), but knowing the math behind it all, hence the researchers.
Not all web apps are overengineered crap because they hired a dev team to build a static site, there are apps like the two I mentioned that do interesting things and happen to use web technologies.