Popup from hell

Reflections on the most annoying 1990s program

Tomas Petricek, University of Kent
tomas@tomasp.net | @tomaspetricek

Pop-ups in the 1990s

Origins of pop-up ads

  • Created at Tripod.com
  • Hosting site like Geocities
  • Disassociate ad from content

Normal web design

  • Custom dialog windows
  • Manage window size & look
  • Normal programs use windows!

Technical side

JavaScript first appeared in the Netscape Navigator browser in 1995

window.open and window.onunload exist from version 1

Social side

Geocities

Fairly well-documented creative online community of the 1990s

DEMO

Popup from hell

No more fun :-(

Popup blocking commonplace in
the early 2000s

Blocks popups on page load, unload and timer events, but not on click

Well, actually...

Same user experience, recreated using harder to block technique

Reflections

What is a program

What is a program

Popup from hell that cannot be closed

Source code from my highschool years?

Other equivalent code from the web?

More general idea of an evil popup?

System change prevents it from working!

Environment determines if it is "bad"

REFLECTIONS

Two eras of the web

1990s

View source

Copy & paste

Windows work!

2010s

Compiled code

Custom elements

WASM + Canvas

Google Docs

Replace built-in editable element with custom code (May 2021)

Better performance
Accessibility issues
Affects extensions

Atom vs Code

Mini-editor war
of the 2010s

Code enforces information hiding for performance, limits unexpected extensibility

REFLECTIONS

Evolution of systems

Growth of opacity

JavaScript code

  • From small clear code
  • To compiled and minified
  • And compiled assembly

Browser element use

  • From window.open to DOM
  • And custom canvas element
  • There are exceptions!

Embedding

Use of system structure for program aspects

Program running in a system

Web page embedded in a browser

Smalltalk embedded in a host OS

Deep vs. shallow

Shallow embedding

  • Reuse system features
  • Limited control
  • Legible to the system
  • Allows accessibility, blocking

Deep embedding

  • Redo everything from scratch
  • Lose commonality, accessibility
  • Gain control and flexibility

Deep embedding

Why and how did it happen?

Popups from hell
Avoiding being understood by browser

Compilation to JavaScript
Use "better" programming languages

Replacing built-in features
Programmers think they can do better

Deep embedding

Is this an inevitable development?

Attractive puzzle solving activity!

Community may be too small to do it

Community culture may favour reuse

App Store may block doing this

Summary

Popup from hell

Summary

Popup from hell

Laws of software system evolution?
When is deep embedding inevitable?

Embedding and information hiding
Deep embedding hides information from system


Tomas Petricek, University of Kent
tomas@tomasp.net | @tomaspetricek