Define “Web”

John Gruber, in response to Chris Dixon:

It’s possible that the word “web” is too tightly associated with HTML/CSS/JavaScript content rendered in web browsers — that if I want to make a semantic argument, I should be saying it’s the internet that matters, not the web. But I like calling it the web, even as it expands outside the confines of HTML/CSS/JavaScript. The web has always been a nebulous concept, but at its center is the idea that everything can be linked.

This is the important part. Apps aren’t inherently competing with the web, usually they’re complimenting it. If your app can follow – better yet, respond to – a hyperlink then it’s just as much a part of the web as any website.

Apps will, for the foreseeable future, make more efficient and impressive use of the underlying hardware. HTML/CSS/JavaScript are a complicated bag of hurt (it’s OK, I have friend who’s JavaScript), and just because Mobile Safari and Chrome do it well doesn’t mean mobile and responsive websites are going to reverse the trend any time soon.

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