Item — HN Reader

Yeah, I definitely agree that this is a big step from anything I've seen thus far.

This was more to kick off a discussion about "are we there yet?", and if not, what is still missing?

I mean, I know what I think is missing, but I've not tried building HTML5 games to understand if HTML5 is the bottleneck, or if other dependencies are the bottleneck.

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Perhaps what's missing is a good reason for choosing HTML5 over traditional technologies when you're investing in a new project.

Pros:

Runtime is very widely available

Cons:

Relatively poor performance

Monetization strategy is not clear

Browser differences increase cost of development

You also have to mess with Javascript on some level, even if you are compiling down from something else.

People who are professional game developers have invested a lot in C++ , have a lot of experience in that area and tend to see Javascript as something for developing websites with.

So on top of the other problems you have persuade them that it's something worth spending the time to get proficient in.

If you're coming from a deep machine and C++ understanding, it's not that JavaScript is tough to become proficient in, but rather, that you of all people have every reason to fully comprehend why it's such an awful implementation choice for this proposed purpose. It's not as if the PC or mobile game market is suffering for lack of cross-platform browser-based compatibility, so why switch to a suboptimal tool?

Do you still have to deal with all of the DOM stuff in html5/javascript?

Yes and no. It's all still there of course. I imagine though if you want to build a game you don't use DOM elements for sprites etc. You just create a giant <canvas> element that you draw to as you would draw to a frame buffer in DirectX etc. You could use DOM elements for the UI though I guess.

Yep. If you examine the source of this game that's exactly how they handle the game itself.