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It looks dead. I think they chose the wrong approach in lots of ways, but it wasn't that far from a JS (and Typescript) based OS on top of Linux that is actual

It looks dead. I think they chose the wrong approach in lots of ways, but it wasn't that far from a JS (and Typescript) based OS on top of Linux that is actually a good idea. ChromeOS is kind of close to what I'd want, if you could remove Google from it. (I actually like ChromeOS, nearly perfect for my kid's computer) Firefox OS was also kind of close, but they missed in a lot of ways. Here are the features of some OS I wish existed: Open source and not primarily controlled by Apple or Google or Microsoft of Facebook or whatever. JS and Typescript are essentially native and are the primary ways of building apps, but WASM would be available if you need machine code. The same JS engine runs in the browser as for running applications. The same rendering engine works inside the browser and to render "native" apps that do any drawing to the screen. Preferably, you could choose to run on one of several browser engines Most apps that run as native apps can, without much extra work, run as web apps, and vice versa. The UI isn't built on a framework that might fall in popularity. So not React or Angular or Vue or whatever. If people want to use those in their apps, they are there, but core stuff for the UI avoids relying on them. That's all I can think of for now. Beyond "design it really, really well and make a slick feeling but non-limiting front end experience." Which is hard. (sorry to those with unbridled hate for JS and even Typescript)

laumars 5y ago
We’ve seen how Electron performs. The only reason VSC doesn’t totally suck is because a lot of it is still native code. I can’t even imagine how crappy it would be building an entire OS out of that stuff. And you’re never going to escape the needs for another systems language because unless you find a way of writing non-memory managed code with pointers and inlined assembly in JavaScript, that language simply isn’t going to cut it. And on top of that you’d need a compiler that can compile machine code just to bootstrap node in the first place. I’m all for experimental operating systems but there’s a reason systems languages differ in design to web scripting languages and really we should be using the languages that suit each domain the best rather than simply putting JavaScript everywhere because we are too lazy to learn anything else.
- chpmrc 5y ago
  VSCode literally runs in the browser with identical performance to the Electron app (because aside from some differences in APIs, the runtime is pretty much the same). Try GitHub Codespaces and you'll see.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    A subset of it runs on the browser, it is also how it all started anyway, with the Monaco editor project.
    - chpmrc 5y ago
      No, it's exactly the same as the "native" app (API differences aside, as I mentioned). Have you tried GitHub Codespaces?
- qbasic_forever 5y ago
  There's very little native code in VS code: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode https://github.com/microsoft/vscode It's all typescript, even the main editor component monaco. You might be thinking of the atom editor which tried to do more native code for speed of editing but AFAIK atom has kind of been shelved and not developed anymore.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    The search engine is ripgrep, written in Rust, and VSCode makes heavy use of WebGL, e.g. terminal. You should have gone through https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/blob/main/package.json https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/blob/main/package.json instead of main repo.
    - laumars 5y ago
      No idea why you’re getting downvoted. Search, language server engines, even code reformatting, all the stuff that really separates VSC is an external executable and thus not part of Electron. If any of these fanboys spent even 5 minutes looking at the config of VSC (never mind the source) they’d see just how many references to other binaries there are.
Findecanor 5y ago
I believe an OS based on WASM could have merit. For WASM, there is the AssemblyScript language, which was inspired by TypeScript but runs faster because it avoid the complexity of JavaScript runtimes. <https://www.assemblyscript.org https://www.assemblyscript.org>, <https://leanylabs.com/blog/assemblyscript-intro https://leanylabs.com/blog/assemblyscript-intro>
- DemocracyFTW 5y ago
  an OS based on WASM could have merit Came here to say this. Beyond Rust and AssemblyScript, there are quite a few other programming languages that target WASM, meaning that WASM is a good candidate for that holy grail, the unified environment where you can write your stuff in 'any' language and re-use and talk to stuff written in 'any' language without relying on relatively clunky, type-challenged and slow IPC.
erlend_sh 5y ago
Deno plus Tauri is getting increasingly close to this.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
timwis 5y ago
Could you just build this OS as a web app?
antifa 5y ago
> The UI isn't built on a framework that might fall in popularity. So not React or Angular or Vue or whatever. So what exactly has better long term popularity than React/Vue/Angular? We're at about 5+ years of those being the big three...

laumars 5y ago

We’ve seen how Electron performs. The only reason VSC doesn’t totally suck is because a lot of it is still native code. I can’t even imagine how crappy it would be building an entire OS out of that stuff. And you’re never going to escape the needs for another systems language because unless you find a way of writing non-memory managed code with pointers and inlined assembly in JavaScript, that language simply isn’t going to cut it. And on top of that you’d need a compiler that can compile machine code just to bootstrap node in the first place. I’m all for experimental operating systems but there’s a reason systems languages differ in design to web scripting languages and really we should be using the languages that suit each domain the best rather than simply putting JavaScript everywhere because we are too lazy to learn anything else.

chpmrc 5y ago
VSCode literally runs in the browser with identical performance to the Electron app (because aside from some differences in APIs, the runtime is pretty much the same). Try GitHub Codespaces and you'll see.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  A subset of it runs on the browser, it is also how it all started anyway, with the Monaco editor project.
  - chpmrc 5y ago
    No, it's exactly the same as the "native" app (API differences aside, as I mentioned). Have you tried GitHub Codespaces?
qbasic_forever 5y ago
There's very little native code in VS code: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode https://github.com/microsoft/vscode It's all typescript, even the main editor component monaco. You might be thinking of the atom editor which tried to do more native code for speed of editing but AFAIK atom has kind of been shelved and not developed anymore.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  The search engine is ripgrep, written in Rust, and VSCode makes heavy use of WebGL, e.g. terminal. You should have gone through https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/blob/main/package.json https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/blob/main/package.json instead of main repo.
  - laumars 5y ago
    No idea why you’re getting downvoted. Search, language server engines, even code reformatting, all the stuff that really separates VSC is an external executable and thus not part of Electron. If any of these fanboys spent even 5 minutes looking at the config of VSC (never mind the source) they’d see just how many references to other binaries there are.

Findecanor 5y ago

I believe an OS based on WASM could have merit. For WASM, there is the AssemblyScript language, which was inspired by TypeScript but runs faster because it avoid the complexity of JavaScript runtimes. <https://www.assemblyscript.org https://www.assemblyscript.org>, <https://leanylabs.com/blog/assemblyscript-intro https://leanylabs.com/blog/assemblyscript-intro>

DemocracyFTW 5y ago
an OS based on WASM could have merit Came here to say this. Beyond Rust and AssemblyScript, there are quite a few other programming languages that target WASM, meaning that WASM is a good candidate for that holy grail, the unified environment where you can write your stuff in 'any' language and re-use and talk to stuff written in 'any' language without relying on relatively clunky, type-challenged and slow IPC.

erlend_sh 5y ago

Deno plus Tauri is getting increasingly close to this.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

timwis 5y ago

Could you just build this OS as a web app?

antifa 5y ago

> The UI isn't built on a framework that might fall in popularity. So not React or Angular or Vue or whatever. So what exactly has better long term popularity than React/Vue/Angular? We're at about 5+ years of those being the big three...