Google created protocol buffers as a replacement for the bulky XML method of data transition. Faster XML processing was just not good enough. Most of the web has grown up as a hodge podge of different technologies that have been integrated to work within the browser or to generate html. JavaScript is separate from HTML. Flash and Silverlight are plugged in the mix as well. We can get the job done with the tools we have but can we do better?
Before you mention standards, (which are a good thing to have), think about evolutionary change versus revolutionary change. If Henry Ford asked people about a better way to get around they would have said they wanted a faster horse. (Webkit is a faster horse.)
I am hoping there is a project and I just haven’t read of it.
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5There are all sorts of "replacements", and have been since before the web existed. The problem with talking about a "replacement" for HTML+JS is that the conversation generally starts out of frustration with one or more specific aspects of the current implementations:
- "i hate the lack of presentation-specific tags, can we replace it?"
- "i hate the lack of semantic tags, can we replace it?"
- "i hate the CSS box model, can we replace it?"
- "i hate the sub-par printing support, can we replace it?"
- "i hate the hacks required to get glitzy animation, can we replace it?"
- ...
Someone wants a faster horse, someone wants a tireless horse, someone wants a stronger horse, someone wants a horse that smells like burning petroleum instead of, uh, horse... Put all the ideas together and you might get a Model-T... or you might get something out of a Jules Verne / steampunk nightmare.
For every revolution that results in something better, there are scores that produce bloodshed followed by more of the same. Be careful what you wish for...
You mentioned two alternatives already: Silverlight and Flash. It's safe to assume that ~95% people have Flash Player installed; Silverlight has also seen quite good adoption in this short amount of time.
But jumping on the eye-candy bandwagon isn't necessarily going to make your site better. There will be issues with accessibility, search engines not being to properly index your content, users not being to bookmark pages they want to get back to. Rich graphics pages, although vector, take more to load and can often turn out just annoying (where the goal was visual appeal, the opposite happened). All these things can be worked around or even fixed, but it takes much more resources compared to using standards.
All these things would apply even if there was some new technology that we "haven't read of".
HTTP is as slow as network connection is, not by poor design. It's actually very efficient. HTML processing is also blazing fast, considering browsers performed well enough for people using them even on sites with terrible, fat table-based markup. JavaScript scene is looking very bright; there is increased attention on the new version of the specs, multiple implementations, incredible speed advantages in modern browsers over the course of last year. And don't think only WebKit is fast -- Opera and Mozilla have never fallen behind.
If you observe what was happening on the Internet in the last 20 years, you would have noticed that proprietary, vendor-dictated technologies eventually got pushed out by open standards. The only reason Flash Player survived was that JavaScript and open video codecs needed some time to get developed. Now that they are here, I think the same thing is going to happen all over again.
You might be interested in Sun's Lively.
There will also probably be more tools that compile to HTML+JavaScript, so you won't have to deal with them directly (like GWT.) There are also projects that try compile other languages to work in the browser (like HotRuby).
so what you're looking for is a paradigm shift in web technology. it's always tough to imagine how that will look - maybe new tech will become a more immersive experience, incorporating more senses then just sight and sound (touch is a good candidate), as well as something that allows for full-range-motion interaction rather then the 2D 'point and click' mouse interface.
HTML+CSS+JS will be replaced by HTML+CSS+SVG+JS, which will be replaced by incrementally more modern versions of the former, sometimes with something new added in the mix. The web technologies of today are very different of the web technologies of 10 years ago. You can expect the landscape will still be different in ten years.
Look where the alpha geeks look. Well, they are all looking at REST designs with lots of Javascript and CSS.
The various "web replacement" technologies promoted by Microsoft, Adobe, Sun, etc. are only here because those companies hope to get people back into lock-in. Pray that they do not succeed.
The web technologies are not be themselve a "hodge-podge". The hodge-podge aspect comes from multiple implementations with their own bugs and quirks. In other words, it comes from open formats implemented in a competitive market.