5 ms·

Hey, I've got an idea. How about we just implement this POSIX like standard at the OS layer. We can call it POSIX.

by serge2k 11y ago

fennecfoxen 11y ago
Build some nice sandboxed hypermedia-application APIs into POSIX and get them adopted all over, and then sure, we can talk!
mindcrime 11y ago
It's a shame you got downvoted for that, as you make a very good point. This whole trend of making the web browser a poor man's OS is definitely a bit hinky. I mean, how many layers of abstractions built on top of other (redundant) layers of abstraction really make sense? This stuff is one reason that, despite the advances associated with Moore's Law, the advent of SSD's, and increasing RAM counts, computers don't feel any faster than they did in 1995. It's ridiculous in a way. Just to play Devil's Advocate: maybe web browsers should be good at, ya know, browsing and leave the other stuff for something else.
- vectorpush 11y ago
  > It's a shame you got downvoted for that, as you make a very good point. I think this is because the comment comes off as flippant and snarky. > This stuff is one reason that, despite the advances associated with Moore's Law, the advent of SSD's, and increasing RAM counts, computers don't feel any faster than they did in 1995. It's ridiculous in a way. That statement is ridiculous. I've never heard anyone claim that the computers of today don't "feel" any faster than computers of 20 years ago, but if you feel that way I just don't think you're living in the same universe as those of us who walk around with quad core computers in our pockets. > maybe web browsers should be good at, ya know, browsing and leave the other stuff for something else. Please define "other stuff" and where you draw the line between that and simply "browsing"
  - jblow 11y ago
    As someone who has been around since before the Web, I can confirm that computers today do not feel any faster... despite the fact that your phone is faster than the fastest computer in the world from that time. In fact I gave a speech about this at Berkeley last week. I think it'll be online pretty soon. So now you have at least heard someone claim this.
    - vectorpush 11y ago
      > As someone who has been around since before the Web, While this is an impressive credential, it's one that I can also claim. > I can confirm that computers today do not feel any faster... despite the fact that your phone is faster than the fastest computer in the world from that time. I appreciate your confirming a subjective feeling based on anecdote, but as someone who was also around in 1995 and has continued to use computers daily since, I'll respectfully provide my own experiences as counter-anecdote to your own. I don't think there's any point in trying to debate our subjective opinions regarding how fast computers feel, but I'll assert that if you sat someone down with a 133mhz P1 desktop with 32MB of ram and a 2ghz i5 with 2GB of ram, 9/10 they'd agree that the 2ghz computer unequivocally feels faster than the 133mhz one.
      - jblow 11y ago
        Dude my first professional programming experiences were on a 486/33. Compared to that a P1/133 is pretty darn fast! But as you say, there is not much point debating subjectivity here. It's not like I had the foresight to record benchmarks of how long it took web pages to appear, or to open a window, etc, back in the mid-90s. Edit: How about if I put it this way: If you go back in time to the 90s and tell everyone "20 years from now, we will have a much more advanced web where EVERYONE WILL HAVE A SUPERCOMPUTER IN THEIR POCKET", people would imagine the web would be amazing, and responsive and beautiful, and we would be doing some seriously intricate stuff. Instead ... no, we have a pile of junk that only kind of works, and slowly at that. In terms of potential unreached, the web is kind of a massive failure. (Yes, it is "successful" in the sense that we are able to do a lot with it that we could not 20 years ago, but the mediocre is the enemy of the good, and all that).
- bobajeff 11y ago
  Someone else linked to a talk that mentioned removing all the layers in some theoretical architecture called METAL (this is a old talk) basically running asm.js (again talk is old) directly through the Kernel and even removing overhead that Kernels need for making native code safe (such as the Memory Management Unit) and as a result it would run faster than normal native code. https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death... The major thing to be gained from all this then is software that can run fast but not have to be recompiled for all the different systems and hardware.
- raquo 11y ago
  > how many layers of abstractions built on top of other (redundant) layers of abstraction really make sense? As many as needed. This is a political problem, not a technical one. OSs don't want to provide one common framework for writing and distributing sandboxed one-click-install write-once-run-anywhere applications. So browsers are solving this problem on their own. Maybe you don't care about this, but users, developers who need to write universal apps, and their marketing managers definitely do.
vmorgulis 11y ago
There is an effort in this direction in emscripten (with musl). For example with pthreads: https://kripken.github.io/emscripten-site/docs/porting/pthreads.html https://kripken.github.io/emscripten-site/docs/porting/pthre...

Hey, I've got an idea. How about we just implement this POSIX like standard at the OS layer. We can call it POSIX.

by serge2k 11y ago

Hey, I've got an idea. How about we just implement this POSIX like standard at the OS layer. We can call it POSIX.

Build some nice sandboxed hypermedia-application APIs into POSIX and get them adopted all over, and then sure, we can talk!

mindcrime 11y ago

It's a shame you got downvoted for that, as you make a very good point. This whole trend of making the web browser a poor man's OS is definitely a bit hinky. I mean, how many layers of abstractions built on top of other (redundant) layers of abstraction really make sense? This stuff is one reason that, despite the advances associated with Moore's Law, the advent of SSD's, and increasing RAM counts, computers don't feel any faster than they did in 1995. It's ridiculous in a way. Just to play Devil's Advocate: maybe web browsers should be good at, ya know, browsing and leave the other stuff for something else.

vectorpush 11y ago
> It's a shame you got downvoted for that, as you make a very good point. I think this is because the comment comes off as flippant and snarky. > This stuff is one reason that, despite the advances associated with Moore's Law, the advent of SSD's, and increasing RAM counts, computers don't feel any faster than they did in 1995. It's ridiculous in a way. That statement is ridiculous. I've never heard anyone claim that the computers of today don't "feel" any faster than computers of 20 years ago, but if you feel that way I just don't think you're living in the same universe as those of us who walk around with quad core computers in our pockets. > maybe web browsers should be good at, ya know, browsing and leave the other stuff for something else. Please define "other stuff" and where you draw the line between that and simply "browsing"
- jblow 11y ago
  As someone who has been around since before the Web, I can confirm that computers today do not feel any faster... despite the fact that your phone is faster than the fastest computer in the world from that time. In fact I gave a speech about this at Berkeley last week. I think it'll be online pretty soon. So now you have at least heard someone claim this.
  - vectorpush 11y ago
    > As someone who has been around since before the Web, While this is an impressive credential, it's one that I can also claim. > I can confirm that computers today do not feel any faster... despite the fact that your phone is faster than the fastest computer in the world from that time. I appreciate your confirming a subjective feeling based on anecdote, but as someone who was also around in 1995 and has continued to use computers daily since, I'll respectfully provide my own experiences as counter-anecdote to your own. I don't think there's any point in trying to debate our subjective opinions regarding how fast computers feel, but I'll assert that if you sat someone down with a 133mhz P1 desktop with 32MB of ram and a 2ghz i5 with 2GB of ram, 9/10 they'd agree that the 2ghz computer unequivocally feels faster than the 133mhz one.
    - jblow 11y ago
      Dude my first professional programming experiences were on a 486/33. Compared to that a P1/133 is pretty darn fast! But as you say, there is not much point debating subjectivity here. It's not like I had the foresight to record benchmarks of how long it took web pages to appear, or to open a window, etc, back in the mid-90s. Edit: How about if I put it this way: If you go back in time to the 90s and tell everyone "20 years from now, we will have a much more advanced web where EVERYONE WILL HAVE A SUPERCOMPUTER IN THEIR POCKET", people would imagine the web would be amazing, and responsive and beautiful, and we would be doing some seriously intricate stuff. Instead ... no, we have a pile of junk that only kind of works, and slowly at that. In terms of potential unreached, the web is kind of a massive failure. (Yes, it is "successful" in the sense that we are able to do a lot with it that we could not 20 years ago, but the mediocre is the enemy of the good, and all that).
bobajeff 11y ago
Someone else linked to a talk that mentioned removing all the layers in some theoretical architecture called METAL (this is a old talk) basically running asm.js (again talk is old) directly through the Kernel and even removing overhead that Kernels need for making native code safe (such as the Memory Management Unit) and as a result it would run faster than normal native code. https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death... The major thing to be gained from all this then is software that can run fast but not have to be recompiled for all the different systems and hardware.
raquo 11y ago
> how many layers of abstractions built on top of other (redundant) layers of abstraction really make sense? As many as needed. This is a political problem, not a technical one. OSs don't want to provide one common framework for writing and distributing sandboxed one-click-install write-once-run-anywhere applications. So browsers are solving this problem on their own. Maybe you don't care about this, but users, developers who need to write universal apps, and their marketing managers definitely do.

vmorgulis 11y ago

There is an effort in this direction in emscripten (with musl). For example with pthreads: https://kripken.github.io/emscripten-site/docs/porting/pthreads.html https://kripken.github.io/emscripten-site/docs/porting/pthre...