alt Hacker NewsCounterpoint: is the web browser not already fulfilling the "universal app engine" need? It can already run on most end user devices where people do most other things. IoT/Edge devices don't count here, but this day most of their data is just being sent back to a server which is accessible via some web interface.
Ignoring the fragmentation of course; although that seems to be getting less and less each year (so long as you ignore Safari).
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Yes. But it consumes at least 10x-100x more resources to run a web app than to run a comparable desktop app (written in a sufficiently low level language).
The impact on people's time, money and on the environment are proportional.
I think a browser is an inverted universal engine. The underlying tech is solid, but on top of it sits the DOM and scripting, and then apps have to build on top of that mess. In my opinion, it would be much better for web apps and the DOM to be sibling implementations using the same engine, not hierarchically related. You wouldn’t use Excel as a foundation to make software, even though you could.
Maybe useful higher-level elements like layout, typography, etc. could be shared as frameworks.
>Counterpoint: is the web browser not already fulfilling the "universal app engine" need?
Counter-counterpoint: Maybe it's time to require professional engineer certification before a software product can be shipped in a way that can be monetized. It's to filter devs from the industry who look at browsers today and go "Yeah, this is a good universal app engine."