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Comment by robbrown451

4 years ago

What would Hacker News be? How about email apps such as Gmail or Yahoo mail?

Both can be the text web.

I am fairly certain that I have posted to Hacker News with Lynx, which means that everything is handled server side.

About 20 years ago, I created a personal webmail client that was implemented entirely on the server side.

The distinction is important and while it would produce a very different web, but it does not mean a web of static content.

  • Well, I can certainly login, navigate to this comment, and then reply with Lynx.

    It's not a great experience, mind, but it does work.

    • Upvoting and downvoting work too last time I checked.

      The three categories I would make are: text, static forms, and SPAs

There are email clients.

  • There are. I used Eudora up to 2005. Incidentally, I can't look at my email history before 2005, because, you know... formats become obsolete, hard drives die, etc.

    Do those clients work on my mac, my chromebook, my windows box, and my android phone?

    Call me crazy, but I prefer web apps for that kind of stuff. I'm also glad I don't have to download an app to use Hacker News.

    As an independent developer, I am quite pleased that I can target one platform, the web, without having to deal with all the mess of multiple native apps, and worry that people won't run my simple app because they don't trust me not to delete their hard drive, and so on.

    • >Do those clients work on my mac, my chromebook, my windows box, and my android phone?

      Yes.

      >Call me crazy, but I prefer web apps for that kind of stuff. I'm also glad I don't have to download an app to use Hacker News.

      Web means HTTP, Email is POP3/SMTP/IMAP. Different protocol, different programs. That you can use a website to view and send emails is not the default case and is merely a interface to those protocols.

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