Why did the web win the space of remote applications and X not?
- by Martin Josefsson
The X Window System is 25 years old, it had it's birthday yesterday (on the 15'th).
As you probably are aware of, one of it's most important features is the separation of the server side and the client side in a way that neither Microsoft's, Apples or Wayland's windowing systems have.
Back in the days (sorry for the ambiguous phrasing) many believed X would dominate over other ways to make windows because of this separation of server and client, allowing the application to be ran on a server somewhere else while the user clicks and types on her own computer at home.
This use obviously still exists, but is marginalized at best. When we write and use programs that run on a server we almost always use the web with it's html/css/js.
Why did the web win, and X not? The technologies used for the web (said html/css/js) are a mess. Combined with all the back-end-frameworks (Rails, Django and all) it really is a jungle to navigate thru. Still the web thrives with creativity and progress, while remote X apps do not.
