4 ms·

Native Client d**k-swinging met with fake Googasm

5 points by twampss 18y ago

old-gregg 18y ago
If he turned down his sarcasm just a bit, more people would actually see the point he's trying to make. I too believe that browser-based HTML/CSS/Flash/Silverlight platform is not the future. If some mad genius with a bunch of free time on his hands takes Cocoa, makes it truly cross-platform and merges it with something like Debian apt and manages to achieve Flash-like market penetration, that would be a killer platform to develop for: huge market (OSX/Windows/Linux + mobile devices that run them), native CPU speed, rich graphics, joy to develop for, seamless distribution - typing "apt-get install foo" is no harder than typing "http://foomaker.com/downloads/foo http://foomaker.com/downloads/foo" plus your users won't have to deal with fucking login screens for everything and their shit keeps working on a plane. I suspect the reason for web-app proliferation isn't technical, developing for the web just makes more business sense: you don't have to share your precious code because of those sweet GPLed tools you use, you cover Windows and OSX with one shot, you don't have to worry about folks pirating your software, and distribution/updates are much easier. Seriously, nobody needs a fucking web-based photoshop. What for? Collaborative red eye removal?
- randrews 18y ago
  > Seriously, nobody needs a fucking web-based photoshop. What for? Collaborative red eye removal? Maybe so that their images are available from whatever computer they happen to be sitting at. That's what I use Google Docs for.
  - old-gregg 18y ago
    That is a simple function of storage. There is no need to push tons of code around only to share a freaking document. Microsoft could have built a "cloud collaboration" tool into MS Word if they wanted to. In fact they have, but AFAIK it works only on Intranets and only if you purchase their proprietary server-side BS
    - randrews 18y ago
      Okay, so I go over to my girlfriend's apartment and want to show her something I wrote. MS Word: Buy a copy of the server-side component for my server, set it up beforehand, buy a second copy of MS Word, remember to bring it with me, install it on her machine, set up the cloud collaboration tool to read from wherever I stored the document, display it. Google Docs: Open a browser, log into Google, click on the document. Right now the only reason all this stuff is web-based is because browsers are everywhere. If you think about it, your cross-platform environment basically is a browser. You type in a URL, it downloads some code and runs it. It saves back the data you make to the place it downloaded the code from. You just want a browser that's more designed for applications than documents, which is (I think) what Google was going for with Chrome, only it's not that popular yet because most of their early adopters are on Macs now.
      - old-gregg 18y ago
        Google Docs: Open a browser, log into Google, click on the document. At the cost of being basically a Notepad with fonts. Which is probably less than 1% of what MS Office can do. Oh, and if your favorite Starbucks loses Internet connection you're fucked. During startup school 2008 Paul Graham was asking the audience to "stop using the Internet" because his freaking presentation wouldn't load. I think the "dream runtime" I envisioned above beats this nightmare hands down. If you think about it, your cross-platform environment basically is a browser Yes, the browser is the runtime stack, albeit a very crappy one with big limitations and huge legacy, which is why, I believe, browser-based apps are not the future. JavaFX, Gears, Flash, Silverlight - they don't exist because someone was bored. The pressure of going back to desktop-style development is growing.
        randrews 18y ago
        You don't want desktop apps, you want a better browser. Put in a URL, download software from it, run it locally. That's a browser. The only thing that Google Apps is missing from that is that it periodically has to hit the server to save your documents, and that its interface isn't as flashy, because current browsers suck. Bringing out MS Word into your argument only confused things, because traditional get-it-on-a-CD software is a huge step backward no matter how much nicer the GUI toolkits are.

5 points by twampss 18y ago

If he turned down his sarcasm just a bit, more people would actually see the point he's trying to make. I too believe that browser-based HTML/CSS/Flash/Silverlight platform is not the future. If some mad genius with a bunch of free time on his hands takes Cocoa, makes it truly cross-platform and merges it with something like Debian apt and manages to achieve Flash-like market penetration, that would be a killer platform to develop for: huge market (OSX/Windows/Linux + mobile devices that run them), native CPU speed, rich graphics, joy to develop for, seamless distribution - typing "apt-get install foo" is no harder than typing "http://foomaker.com/downloads/foo http://foomaker.com/downloads/foo" plus your users won't have to deal with fucking login screens for everything and their shit keeps working on a plane. I suspect the reason for web-app proliferation isn't technical, developing for the web just makes more business sense: you don't have to share your precious code because of those sweet GPLed tools you use, you cover Windows and OSX with one shot, you don't have to worry about folks pirating your software, and distribution/updates are much easier. Seriously, nobody needs a fucking web-based photoshop. What for? Collaborative red eye removal?

randrews 18y ago
> Seriously, nobody needs a fucking web-based photoshop. What for? Collaborative red eye removal? Maybe so that their images are available from whatever computer they happen to be sitting at. That's what I use Google Docs for.
- old-gregg 18y ago
  That is a simple function of storage. There is no need to push tons of code around only to share a freaking document. Microsoft could have built a "cloud collaboration" tool into MS Word if they wanted to. In fact they have, but AFAIK it works only on Intranets and only if you purchase their proprietary server-side BS
  - randrews 18y ago
    Okay, so I go over to my girlfriend's apartment and want to show her something I wrote. MS Word: Buy a copy of the server-side component for my server, set it up beforehand, buy a second copy of MS Word, remember to bring it with me, install it on her machine, set up the cloud collaboration tool to read from wherever I stored the document, display it. Google Docs: Open a browser, log into Google, click on the document. Right now the only reason all this stuff is web-based is because browsers are everywhere. If you think about it, your cross-platform environment basically is a browser. You type in a URL, it downloads some code and runs it. It saves back the data you make to the place it downloaded the code from. You just want a browser that's more designed for applications than documents, which is (I think) what Google was going for with Chrome, only it's not that popular yet because most of their early adopters are on Macs now.
    - old-gregg 18y ago
      Google Docs: Open a browser, log into Google, click on the document. At the cost of being basically a Notepad with fonts. Which is probably less than 1% of what MS Office can do. Oh, and if your favorite Starbucks loses Internet connection you're fucked. During startup school 2008 Paul Graham was asking the audience to "stop using the Internet" because his freaking presentation wouldn't load. I think the "dream runtime" I envisioned above beats this nightmare hands down. If you think about it, your cross-platform environment basically is a browser Yes, the browser is the runtime stack, albeit a very crappy one with big limitations and huge legacy, which is why, I believe, browser-based apps are not the future. JavaFX, Gears, Flash, Silverlight - they don't exist because someone was bored. The pressure of going back to desktop-style development is growing.
      - randrews 18y ago
        You don't want desktop apps, you want a better browser. Put in a URL, download software from it, run it locally. That's a browser. The only thing that Google Apps is missing from that is that it periodically has to hit the server to save your documents, and that its interface isn't as flashy, because current browsers suck. Bringing out MS Word into your argument only confused things, because traditional get-it-on-a-CD software is a huge step backward no matter how much nicer the GUI toolkits are.