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As the OS gets thinner and more like a hypervisor, the apps and app-like VMs get more OS-like. One day the browser might have daemons. I'd guess at the same ti

by nealabq 12y ago

As the OS gets thinner and more like a hypervisor, the apps and app-like VMs get more OS-like. One day the browser might have daemons. I'd guess at the same time all these pieces will continue to become more distributed. Hypervisors and apps will present distributed environments (storage, processing, failover), even more than they do today.

stephengillie 12y ago
At one time, all an Operating System did was load other programs into memory so the processor would run them instead. All of the sandboxing, garbage collection, security, and other features were added to make it more usable.
- pyre 12y ago
  Correct. The usability gain was not having to (e.g.) write your own printer drivers if you wanted your program to use a printer. But if nowadays (e.g.) printer controllers are smart enough to take on most of the tasks that the OS abstracts from processes running in under it, then maybe we can turn that abstraction into a much thinner layer between the processes and the hardware.
anon4 12y ago
> one day the browser might have daemons It already does. Just write an extension and schedule a function. The one thing I don't think you can do yet is listen on a socket. At least not without doing a websocket connection to a separate service. Or bringing a native component with you.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Firefox extensions can, and have always could. ChatZilla, for example, does direct access to IRC servers from Mozilla browsers since 2000, but even server sockets are possible[1]. Native components are also possible - they're called XPCOM components. Or you can use js-ctypes[2]. [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Tech/XPCOM/Reference/Interface/nsIServerSocket https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Tech/XPCOM/... [2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/js-ctypes https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/js-ctypes

by nealabq 12y ago

stephengillie 12y ago

At one time, all an Operating System did was load other programs into memory so the processor would run them instead. All of the sandboxing, garbage collection, security, and other features were added to make it more usable.

pyre 12y ago
Correct. The usability gain was not having to (e.g.) write your own printer drivers if you wanted your program to use a printer. But if nowadays (e.g.) printer controllers are smart enough to take on most of the tasks that the OS abstracts from processes running in under it, then maybe we can turn that abstraction into a much thinner layer between the processes and the hardware.

anon4 12y ago

> one day the browser might have daemons It already does. Just write an extension and schedule a function. The one thing I don't think you can do yet is listen on a socket. At least not without doing a websocket connection to a separate service. Or bringing a native component with you.

icebraining 12y ago
Firefox extensions can, and have always could. ChatZilla, for example, does direct access to IRC servers from Mozilla browsers since 2000, but even server sockets are possible[1]. Native components are also possible - they're called XPCOM components. Or you can use js-ctypes[2]. [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Tech/XPCOM/Reference/Interface/nsIServerSocket https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Tech/XPCOM/... [2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/js-ctypes https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/js-ctypes