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I have a PC/Mac/Linux I want cross portability I use trolltech and C++ or something similar. What's wrong with installation? Installation gives me access to a n

by daven11 17y ago

I have a PC/Mac/Linux I want cross portability I use trolltech and C++ or something similar. What's wrong with installation? Installation gives me access to a nice operating system with a rich set of API's, threads, memory, file system. I fit's something I want to use I install it. Installation can cause problems with older software that isn't internet aware and can't automatically update itself. That is no longer an issue. These thing's are cute toys, but really. Let's say I want to make something that can manipulate a raw image (around 100MB) for printing, would I use a browser - well the answer is pretty obvious. So what is this browser stuff for??? It's cute and fun I agree. But it's not really practical as an image manipulation program. It's a cute distraction for hobbyists. If you want to do real work then fire up your compiler. Using the browser and trying to get html to do something which is easy to do with a compiler is a distraction. The internet is the powerful thing, forget about the browser and html 5, but use the internet and web standards to enable your software to use web based data stores for collabaration and publishing then you're onto a winner. ...oh and this doesn't run on 99% of machines either :-)

ghshephard 17y ago
I went through a roller coaster of feelings as I read each paragraph of your post. And then I took a deep breath and re-read it. So, first - You're taking an unpopular position, suggesting that the future of everything isn't HTML5 - but you do so coherently. But, the thing is, HTML5 isn't a replacement for thick binaries - I don't believe anyone has suggested that you are going to replace Excel, Photoshop, or AutoCad with an HTML5 App. But, with that said, not everyone needs all the power of those Thick Binaries - lots of people get by with Google Docs, Zimbra, Numbers, and other applications that are "good enough." (Please, before anyone tells me that these applications are competitors for their thick binaries - Tell me how many thousands of hours you've spent on them. Any Excel/Cad/Photoshop Jockey not only knows precisely how limited those applications are, but they also find their smaller competitors unuseable. ) I'm guessing 95% plus of the non-productivity application needs can be solved by HTML5 or it's close companions. What _is_ going to be replaced is Flash. Particularly with the iPad about to come out strong (Mossberg thought it would sell millions of units when priced at $999, with the entry at $779 - He didn't even hazard a guess at what Apple is going to be able to do with a $499 machine) - people who want to write cross platform WebApps are going to _master_ HTML5, particularly with Google and Apple both driving WebKit so hard - now you get Chromium + iPad in one fell swoop - pretty hard to ignore that target environment. Re: 99% of machines - Probably pretty close to it. How many machines out there can't run a reasonably recent version of FireFox - I'll admit there is a lot of them, but most machines in the last five years probably can.
- daven11 17y ago
  'But, the thing is, HTML5 isn't a replacement for thick binaries' If you have a look further up in this post people are suggesting this as far as I can see - e.g. 'It won't be long before all applications are written in HTML/CSS/JS.' Why use a browser for content creation? Browsers are good for displaying text and graphics, but when it comes to creation sometime you're going to hit the wall - whether it's file size/memory limits/bandwidth limits. What is the cut point for a browser app - There must be one. At the moment I'm editing and saving some movies I taped on my USB recorder to my PC, so I can watch them later. Will a browser ever be able to do this? it seems unlikely. My previous example about editing a large raw image - it seems unlikely a browser will do that. My day job is writing database apps, will a browser ever do that? seems unlikely, except for some of the front end stuff. So what are the things a browser can do? The more I think about it the smaller the class of applications is - whether it's using HTML 5, 6 or 112. A browser app is good for - little apps that aren't too resource intensive - things that you'd like to access from multiple places (like email), but things like dropbox are way better for a large class - a web enabled native app - reading web sites - searching web sites No matter which way you cut it, there is a class of applications that will never run on a browser. So the argument is where this cut point exists, not if it exists. (and 99% of PC's could run this app if the people who owned those PC's could install an application called firefox, an application that is tuned for running this particular web enabled application that uses html 5 as it's file format)
  - ghshephard 17y ago
    I pretty much agree with you - though, I have to admit, things like GoogleMaps, GoogleDocs, are pushing that cut-point further each day. I know a _lot_ of people who use the GoogleDocs Spreadsheet tools as their only spreadsheet, and gmail is a pretty powerful email client. I'm going to suggest that the cut point is at about 50% of the applications out there today, if we can include code that can be run offline by your browser as well. HTML5 is going to radically move that cutpoint. Many of the new applications that we use in our company, Jira, Remedy, Confluence, Bamboo, are being built as web applications. Microsoft Excel on Windows is still about 10x better than any spreadsheet Application out there for people who really need power, but, for 95% of the population - a lot of the web apps will serve them just fine. Now - where I think we can all agree, is that the _backend_ of all of these webapps, are well and truly going to be thick server apps for the forseeable future.

by daven11 17y ago

ghshephard 17y ago

I went through a roller coaster of feelings as I read each paragraph of your post. And then I took a deep breath and re-read it. So, first - You're taking an unpopular position, suggesting that the future of everything isn't HTML5 - but you do so coherently. But, the thing is, HTML5 isn't a replacement for thick binaries - I don't believe anyone has suggested that you are going to replace Excel, Photoshop, or AutoCad with an HTML5 App. But, with that said, not everyone needs all the power of those Thick Binaries - lots of people get by with Google Docs, Zimbra, Numbers, and other applications that are "good enough." (Please, before anyone tells me that these applications are competitors for their thick binaries - Tell me how many thousands of hours you've spent on them. Any Excel/Cad/Photoshop Jockey not only knows precisely how limited those applications are, but they also find their smaller competitors unuseable. ) I'm guessing 95% plus of the non-productivity application needs can be solved by HTML5 or it's close companions. What _is_ going to be replaced is Flash. Particularly with the iPad about to come out strong (Mossberg thought it would sell millions of units when priced at $999, with the entry at $779 - He didn't even hazard a guess at what Apple is going to be able to do with a $499 machine) - people who want to write cross platform WebApps are going to _master_ HTML5, particularly with Google and Apple both driving WebKit so hard - now you get Chromium + iPad in one fell swoop - pretty hard to ignore that target environment. Re: 99% of machines - Probably pretty close to it. How many machines out there can't run a reasonably recent version of FireFox - I'll admit there is a lot of them, but most machines in the last five years probably can.

daven11 17y ago
'But, the thing is, HTML5 isn't a replacement for thick binaries' If you have a look further up in this post people are suggesting this as far as I can see - e.g. 'It won't be long before all applications are written in HTML/CSS/JS.' Why use a browser for content creation? Browsers are good for displaying text and graphics, but when it comes to creation sometime you're going to hit the wall - whether it's file size/memory limits/bandwidth limits. What is the cut point for a browser app - There must be one. At the moment I'm editing and saving some movies I taped on my USB recorder to my PC, so I can watch them later. Will a browser ever be able to do this? it seems unlikely. My previous example about editing a large raw image - it seems unlikely a browser will do that. My day job is writing database apps, will a browser ever do that? seems unlikely, except for some of the front end stuff. So what are the things a browser can do? The more I think about it the smaller the class of applications is - whether it's using HTML 5, 6 or 112. A browser app is good for - little apps that aren't too resource intensive - things that you'd like to access from multiple places (like email), but things like dropbox are way better for a large class - a web enabled native app - reading web sites - searching web sites No matter which way you cut it, there is a class of applications that will never run on a browser. So the argument is where this cut point exists, not if it exists. (and 99% of PC's could run this app if the people who owned those PC's could install an application called firefox, an application that is tuned for running this particular web enabled application that uses html 5 as it's file format)
- ghshephard 17y ago
  I pretty much agree with you - though, I have to admit, things like GoogleMaps, GoogleDocs, are pushing that cut-point further each day. I know a _lot_ of people who use the GoogleDocs Spreadsheet tools as their only spreadsheet, and gmail is a pretty powerful email client. I'm going to suggest that the cut point is at about 50% of the applications out there today, if we can include code that can be run offline by your browser as well. HTML5 is going to radically move that cutpoint. Many of the new applications that we use in our company, Jira, Remedy, Confluence, Bamboo, are being built as web applications. Microsoft Excel on Windows is still about 10x better than any spreadsheet Application out there for people who really need power, but, for 95% of the population - a lot of the web apps will serve them just fine. Now - where I think we can all agree, is that the _backend_ of all of these webapps, are well and truly going to be thick server apps for the forseeable future.