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> This idea that a web browser should be an operating-system-in-a-box-over-http needs to stop. Why? The Web platform is the only non-proprietary platform that
by mwcampbell 13y ago
> This idea that a web browser should be an operating-system-in-a-box-over-http needs to stop.
Why? The Web platform is the only non-proprietary platform that has serious market-share among end-users and mind-share among developers. Therefore, it's the only thing that has a serious chance of ending the dominance of proprietary platforms. IMO, that goal is important enough to override any aesthetic concerns that we developers might have.
- rmrfrmrf 13y ago> it's the only thing that has a serious chance of ending the dominance of proprietary platforms. That has never been the end goal for HTTP or even the WWW. Furthermore, we have proprietary web platforms today: just look at Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc. It's in fact MORE fragmented than the OS market is right now. I mean, think about it: if you were trying to design a portable OS-as-a-service, would you REALLY be using a stateless protocol like HTTP for it? We've done a pretty good job of hacking together ways to maintain state over multiple requests, but the fact of the matter is that it's 100% garbage overhead that wouldn't exist at all if we just used a stateful protocol in the first place!