Google Is Building a Chrome App-Based IDE 209
An anonymous reader writes "Google's Chromium team never ceases to amaze. Its latest project is a Chrome app-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) codenamed Spark. For those who don't know, Chrome packaged apps are written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, but launch outside the browser, work offline by default, and access certain APIs not available to Web apps. In other words, they're Google's way of pushing the limits of the Web as a platform."
A browser is not an iPod (Score:5, Insightful)
and the way Google does this is by moving processing to the client but maintaining control of the APIs. Which raises the question, in my mind, exactly what value is Google providing that you can't get from existing open APIs and platforms? Seems like the only thing they are "providing" is an expectation in your clients that you support Chrome only, and an API that is guaranteed to break and need maintenance in the near future.
Re:A browser is not an iPod (Score:4, Informative)
the only thing they are "providing" is an expectation in your clients that you support Chrome only, and an API that is guaranteed to break and need maintenance in the near future
You're forgetting; A browser is supposed to be a sandbox app. That is, its job is to render data and present an interactive interface to the user -- but not allow automated access to resources on the host system. Their APIs break that. Badly. One need only look to the recent example of Java and it's failed sandbox to recognize the problem here.
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One need only look to the recent example of Java and it's failed sandbox to recognize the problem here.
Yes but this one is web so its in the cloud where as java is legacy.
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what value are they getting? control. and, more people that use their shit, the more people see their name, make apps in their store (which generates lots of user data for google to mine), use their browser, use their tracking / analytics bullshit, use their mail, and when google makes an 'offline' client-side framework, think of all the data they can collect off local devices....
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I believe the GP was asking: What value is Google providing to the user?
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AC answered. It's right there, just before "what".
spam wonderful spam (Score:5, Insightful)
An "anonymous reader" wrote:
Google's Chromium team never ceases to amaze... ...Google's way of pushing the limits of the Web as a platform.
There's nothing amazing about making everything into a fucking HTML+Javascript app with a lowest common denominator of UI features requiring a PC built in the last 3 years and being sufficiently crippled that you'll want to store everything on the "cloud", i.e. on Google's servers.
No, fuck off, Google. I've done dumb terminals, and then terminals with a bit of intelligence+local storage to make things just bearable enough that you're still conned into giving yourself over to someone n thousand miles away who cares as much about your data as he worries about losing the $0/month you're paying him for service.
Re:spam wonderful spam (Score:4, Insightful)
Who said the cloud servers have to be Google's?
Any application based off of a central database has no business being built as a desktop application. The support of web-based apps is just orders of magnitude simpler, and they work better than fat-client apps when deployed across multiple locations. Anything that makes building this kind of app easier and cross-platform, while producing a richer user experience than existing HTML stuff is a good thing. You don't have to use it for everything, but why are you so opposed to it existing?
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But are the boring facts of my daily existence worth posting online in the first place?
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unless you are the president of a large company or a politician, nobody cares about you ...
We were thinking you could fire 500,000, from one of the smaller companies?
Fire one million.
and if you were, they wouldn't have to break into google to steal your data.
Nobody has to break into Google to get your data, Google will hand it over to the government on request. Is it Evil to comply with an Evil order?
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Or anyone who tries to influence a large company or politician - lobbyists, prominent activists, etc. The NSA and its foreign partners wouldn't monitor millions of transactions per day if they're only interested in a few hundred people, would they?
Is it possible that you have issues of self-worth which you're trying to project on others?
What the hell is the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
I really don't get the point, other than keeping computer people employed through layers and layers and layers and layers. As computers get more powerful, it seems software only gets more needlessly complicated and accomplishes the same thing at the same speed as it used to using old hardware and far less code and layers.
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I like the idea of Firefox OS phones though, in that environment you don't have that many layers, just the web crap and javascript host that you needed anyway to look up web pages. It has the uglyness and inefficiency you complain about but at the same time the OS is kept small, gets security updates and you would be able to download those security updates easily enough through 3G/4G or wifi. The execution speed problem is dealt with by throwing brute force at it (low power, 1GHz ARM). If security/privacy f
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I like the idea of Firefox OS phones though, in that environment you don't have that many layers, just the web crap and javascript host that you needed anyway to look up web pages. It has the uglyness and inefficiency you complain about but at the same time the OS is kept small, gets security updates and you would be able to download those security updates easily enough through 3G/4G or wifi. The execution speed problem is dealt with by throwing brute force at it (low power, 1GHz ARM). If security/privacy features are adequate that's the first smartphone/phablet thing I can consider owning. (domain blocker, NoScript equivalent, fine grained permissions along with global rules like "any application that uses GPS can't use networking")
exactly, the *idea* of FFOS. how do you know carriers don't add tracking / spying software into the phones running FirefoxOS? i don't think FirefoxOS is in some commanding market position where they can demand carriers don't touch the software of devices running on their network.
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exactly, the *idea* of FFOS. how do you know carriers don't add tracking / spying software into the phones running FirefoxOS?
If you're paranoid, just build it yourself. [mozilla.org]
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Buy your own FirefoxOS phone instead of paying your carrier, usually paying for it yourself actually turns out to be cheaper.
At least in Europe SIM-free (unlocked) is a lot cheaper than a subscription with phone.
If you take the difference you pay extra per month, the phone is usually slightly more expensive on contract than off contract.
How would GPS and net be mutually exclusive? (Score:2)
global rules like "any application that uses GPS can't use networking"
How should a navigation application that doesn't use networking obtain maps of the area around the device? Or how should a navigation application that doesn't use GPS know where the device is located?
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I can zoom the map myself to know where I am, and as for the GPS data it can be used to record trips on local storage without sending the data to Google or another 3rd party.
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I can zoom the map myself to know where I am
But how would you know on which point to zoom if the application cannot use GPS to display your current location as an icon on the map?
and as for the GPS data it can be used to record trips on local storage
Perhaps I don't know how people use GPS-enabled devices in the real world, but I was under the impression that far fewer people have a need to "record trips" than to see where the stopped vehicle is located with respect to the map around it right freaking now.
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Disclaimer, the settings/options I talk of are a wishlist rather than something I know is existing, I don't know how stuff work on current - still early - Firefox OS. Never seen a phone with it yet.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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I really don't get the point
Hardware and OS independence?
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except it will never be truly hardware and os dependent. right now even web pages do better or worse depending on the 'puter i'm using. don't you see? the dream of independence is just a mirage.
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But the 'web runtine' (HTML, CSS, JS) is a lot closer than all the other runtimes at being operating system independent.
It usually is just a matter of not using the very latest features. Everything pretty much works.
You are forgetting an other advantage of the web is: there is nothing to install, the runtime is already available.
When the public can develop only web apps (Score:3)
Collaboration (Score:2)
This browser based app must bring something new to the table to be relevant. My guess is that it will greatly simplify multiple people collaborating on the same project. Solutions already exist but they are not nearly as seamless as they could be. I still remember seeing Smultron [peterborgapps.com] for the first time and being very impressed. As far as text editors go, it's nothing special but the ability for several people to edit the same file at the same time was (and still is) impressive.
No one knows exactly how th
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greatly simplify multiple people collaborating
A decent VCS won't work better just because you're connecting to a development machine in the cloud via RDP/VNC - and neither will it just because you connect to it via HTML+Javascript.
No one knows exactly how this project will turn out but you can bet Google has their reasons for funding it.
Yeah, to advertise to you, or to gather your data to sell to advertisers. The same reasons Google does absolutely everything.
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Distributed VCS is how collaboration is solved.
Sometimes you want realtime collaboration though, someone to talk to, to show you how to do things, to tell you what you are doing wrong while you are doing it.
Or just straight pair programming.
The web already provides all the pieces: microphone/webcam support, real time communication, just look up webrtc.
Combine that with an online editor like etherpad or more advanced for collaborate online code editor.
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Remind me again why developers would not install development software? If you're sitting at a PC 8+ hours a day for weeks/months/years then you're sure as hell going to spend 30-60 minutes (or 5-10 minutes, if your IT dept are good) setting everything up properly to make it as efficient as possible.
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Yet now we need both heads of a family to work, to pay more taxes than ever, to get fewer services as we hire more and more "competent" (they went
Re: What the hell is the point? (Score:3)
You hit the nail on the head. Keeping people employed is not a bad thing though. If a tool allows mediocre developers to be productive members of society
without retraining, that is a GOOD thing, even if the tool isn't optimal in the absolute sense.
Local webapp (Score:5, Interesting)
First we tried to replace desktop apps with webapps and that's why we stood the awkwardness and immaturity of JavaScript, CSS and HTML. At least, we could justify it by saying "you'll be able to access the application from everywhere" (not true: new versions of browsers broke apps everytime)
Now, we are using those same immature and awkward technologies (JS, CSS, HTML) to develop local apps, which could be developed in C#, C++ or even Delphi in a fraction of time, integrate better with the platform and have more direct access to local APIs. I'm sorry but I don't understand this.
And yes, JavaScript, CSS, etc are way immature if you compare with what you can do in C# (WinForms, WPF), C++ (Qt, Boost) or even Delphi. The debugging process in itself is a nightmare.
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I think that, what they do well is go cross platform easy. moving C++/C# From windows, to mac to linux is hard, takes time. But webapps generally work anywhere. I agree that JS, CSS and HTML are a pain in the ass... I'd love to see something new that compared to C# in ease of coding and power, but had the interoperability of JS. I myself will stick with the more robust languages. I still learning and not a great coder yet so all the wishy washynes of JS, etc... drive me nuts.
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But the web isn't about the programming languages. It's about the runtime that is already installed everywhere.
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If the only think you want (which might not apply to you) is other syntax then just transcompile to Javascript. Lots of 'languages' to choose from these days.
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Local webapps are easy to port only because they are simple apps. Start adding the kind of complexity and features you have in native app developed in C++, C# or Delphi and we'll talk about porting complexity.
Also, C++, C#, Delphi apps are expected to integrate PERFECTLY in the platform: colors, behavior, etc. Local webapps do nothing of that. No wonder there are no "porting complexities". Ugh.
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i laughed.
Re:Local webapp (Score:5, Interesting)
Adding my rant, particularly about how this is far from an isolated incident...
Some notable examples....
Palm's WebOS bragged on how developers *got* to use javascript and css to develop local applications.... Despite some decent UI design elements, the thing was a beast to develop for in that model.
Gnome 3 in it's infinite wisdom has gone to javascript and css for their shell...
iPhone in its original vision figured web browser would suffice before realizing pretty quickly that a decent framework would be called for...
Of course we also have the peculiar entity of Node.js, because web developers had to deal with languages that were just too reasonable in the webapp server space (yes, I know the I/O semantics natively act in a reasonable manner, but things like eventlet bring that sort of model to python).
It's related to the phenomenon where so many vocal developers believe if you do *anything* over a network it better be http. I've even seen scenarios where developers have advocated for http over TCP as IPC for multiple processes that are related by common fork() ancestory, meaning they couldn't possibly run on distinct servers (ignoring the massive security exposure it represented on top of the weirdness).
Now there are decent and reasonable things in the space (e.g. network apis that reasonably *can* map to REST semantics can be explored decently) among the abominations (e.g. SOAP which of course has been plaguing the world for a long time, but still it's the best example of a widespread moronic standard over http for no good reason on top of being a mess in and of itself). Of course everyone jumping on the 'REST' bandwagon means a great deal of interfaces claim to be that way without really usefully being in that camp, and even in apis where it's done mostly correctly, developers think they suddenly have no obligation to write client libraries or utilities or even so much as document it. It's the latter that seems to be most prolific sadly...
Makes some sense even to use HTTP for IPC... (Score:3)
I've even seen scenarios where developers have advocated for http over TCP as IPC for multiple processes that are related by common fork() ancestry
Although I admit it sounds a bit odd on the face of it you get to use whatever frameworks help you deal with REST communications, plus also later you could more easily actually move those operations to separate servers.
SOAP which of course has been plaguing the world for a long time
It has been but it's really a paper tiger at this point, few people use SOAP anymo
Web People vs. Desktop People (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's my memory of what happened. Maybe it's falsely implanted by the NSA. Feel free to mod down -1 Heretical.
When the web first was popular, the web folks told us that web apps would replace desktop apps. And the desktop people said "what about dynamic and interactive GUI's that fat client apps provide?" And the web people told the desktop people "users won't really miss that. HTML by itself is good enough." And when no one was looking, the web folks snuck JavaScript and DHTML through the back door to cover up the insufficiency they denied existed with web apps
Then later on, the web folks told us that web apps would replace desktop apps. And the desktop people said "what about asynchronous network communication that fat client apps provide?" And the web people told the desktop people "users won't really miss that. HTML + DHTML + JavaScript by itself is good enough." And when no one was looking, the web folks snuck Ajax through the back door to cover up the insufficiency they denied existed with web apps.
Then later on still, the web folks told us that web apps would replace desktop apps. And the desktop people said "what about the offline storage that doesn't require network communication that fat client apps provide?" And the web people told the desktop people "users won't really miss that. HTML + DHTML + JavaScript + Ajax is good enough." And when no one was looking, the web folks snuck HTML5 offline storage through the door to cover up the insufficiency they denied existed with web apps.
From my point of view I see an endless cycle of web zealots who keep saying that fat clients are irrelevant, yet who seem to be adding one layer of kludge after another just to keep up with basic fat client functionality that they keep denying is unimportant to users. After all I've seen, I really can't take web people very seriously.
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Beautifully put.
Re:Web People vs. Desktop People (Score:4, Insightful)
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Graphics (Score:2)
So, what's the next insufficiency?
Note that web apps still underpowered in terms of graphical capability.
At some point the web folks will say that web apps can replace desktop apps
Just like at some point it's inevitable we'll have flying cars?
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So, what's the next insufficiency?
Note that web apps still underpowered in terms of graphical capability.
Or more generally, anything that needs number crunching performance...in realtime. Updating a big spreadsheet comes to mind, Google Docs spreadsheets suck once they get beyond a few screen fulls.
That's why NaCl is under development. Though, in general, I think the direction of the future for number crunching performance is to do that part in the cloud.
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I don't think 'the web people' will need NaCl, they have asm.js.
Gamepad, webcam, graphics, printing, memory mgmt (Score:2)
So, what's the next insufficiency? At some point the web folks will say that web apps can replace desktop apps, and there won't be anything left that isn't covered.
Good luck getting robust gamepad, webcam, 3D graphics, audio/video codec (WebM vs. MP4 format war), and shipping label printer support working across more than 90 percent of desktop and mobile browsers. For example, Apple has implemented WebGL in iOS but allows it only in iAds because WebGL in regular web apps would compete with the $99 per developer per year plus 30% of sales it gets from the App Store.
Good luck getting robust multitasking and memory management in a mobile web application. In Chrome for
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Good luck getting robust gamepad
Lack of standardization may be an issue there, true. But games of significant complexity in general are going to be platform-specific. Of course, the bar for games that can work as web apps keeps rising.
webcam
That problem is already pretty well-solved. Google video hangouts work well across a wide variety of systems, for example.
3D graphics
There's no real reason that should be hard. We've had solid 3D graphics standards for decades, and while fragmentation due to rapid progress has been an issue (plus some deliberate MS-in
Scroogled (Score:2)
gamepad
Lack of standardization may be an issue there, true. But games of significant complexity in general are going to be platform-specific.
Yet somehow, SDL manages to abstract gamepad access across multiple PC platforms. True, the button order for non-Xbox 360 controllers varies considerably [pineight.com], but there are ways around that. I seem to remember XBMC maintaining a device description repository for game controllers.
Drivers [for printers] in the cloud.
That would just let Google see everything you print and mine it for keywords.
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Cisco said they would release a free H.264 encoder/decoder:
http://gigaom.com/2013/10/30/mozilla-will-add-h-264-to-firefox-as-cisco-makes-eleventh-hour-push-for-webrtcs-future/ [gigaom.com]
At least free in the sense of: free to download, I don't need to pay MPEG-LA or be worried about their patents.
Cisco is paying for that.
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I doubt there will be a time when we wont be using fat clients but I see myself and the general public using and needing them less as every year passes.
I have a pretty decent rig by any standards these days, full capable of running Crisis 3 at max settings and 60 FPS with about 12 terabytes of local storage available. I used to log onto my PC every day and sit there poring over documents, reading crap off the net, looking at pictures of cats and wasting time on slashdot. I'd fire up my IDE and get some work
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The advantage for the 'web folks' is:
The operating system on the device people buy already comes with a runtime for running 'web apps', aka browser.
By default you run it in a sandbox and the application running in the sandbox is automatically updated every time you open it. A website is updated on the server, anything that needs downloading again gets downloaded again (even if it's a HTML5 offline 'application').
No other runtime has these advantages.
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Re:Local webapp (Score:5, Insightful)
Show them a traditional fat client and they think it's weird and awkward.
You're just making shit up. "Apps" are the Big New Thing. Never before have there been so many "traditional fat clients". The thing is they're only being released for mobile platforms, while the PC platform desperately tries to get rid of them. And why? Because two or three huge companies hate Microsoft, and think this is the way to wrest control of the APIs.
It's working.
But it's not for the user's benefit - at all.
Facebook app isn't HTML5 (Score:2)
I guess you missed the part where Facebook rewrote their Android app from HTML5 to a native implementation less than a year ago:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/13/facebook-android-faster/ [techcrunch.com]
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but the point of these is that they're as if they were traditional fat client apps.
they're just trying to grab the share that phonegap etc are already having.
while also making a base for removing access to the underlying operating system in chromeOS.
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Because the way to stop the issues with bloated web code is to add more layers!
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Basically low cost, good enough and open platform wins every single time.
Look at the Internet and Linux as just an example.
open platform (which makes for a low barrier to entry): web -> check
good enough: web in many, many cases it is -> check
low cost: less brain power is needed to create 'web apps' than native apps, so there is a larger base of people you can hire from -> check
But hey, it is the same reason Valve thinks Steam Box can work, because it is an open platform.
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I've seen the 'entire Java API libraries' aspect described as a giant attack surface. That's one easy to understand explanation for the security problems with Java, and client-side execution of arbitrary java code downloaded from the internet is now pretty much dead.
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Mono. Yes, portable: with Mono, I can develop for Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android and even PS4. Probably more.
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Is that runtime pre-installed ? No, it is not, but the browser is. This is an important part of the reason why web technologies are adopted.
NO IE6 support?! (Score:2)
What kind of terrible crackpots are these guys. Any PHB will tell you if it wont look right in IE 6 then something MUST be wrong with the developers.
After all they create things with FrontPage 2000 all the time. How hard can it be?!
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Anything on the web which requires more than IE6 is excessively complicated or needless eye-candy.
The web is first rate for delivering information, and third rate for delivering software.
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(Which is sadly why a lot of it is made in Flash and avoiding browser kludge --- ugh!)
One example: My Android phone's default web browser cannot use the Gmail.com site correctly!
Nothing new. GIB has been a browser IDE for years. (Score:5, Interesting)
What's all the excitement? The General Interface Builder [generalinterface.org] is basically full-blown bsd licensed browser-based offline IDE of Eclipse proportions. It's quite amazing, certainly speeds up development of non-trivial GeneralInterface Ajax Applications quite a bit and is very well matured.
I'm not holding my breath for Google to catch up on GI anytime soon.
My 2 cents.
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Cloud9 IDE is also exists, but a large company pouring money in this space might have an even bigger impact.
At least that is how I see these articles.
I can't understand software anymore (Score:2, Funny)
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EMACS was released in 1976 and I'm pretty sure can do both of those things.
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EMACS is pretty amazing. I'd switch over myself, but it really needs a better text editor.
Haven't we heard this before? (Score:4, Informative)
2007 Apple - you don't need native apps. You can build great web apps. Developers complain. Apple released a native SDK.
2009 Palm. You can build great apps using the web technologies you already know. Developers complain. Palm releases native SDK.
2011 RIM announces that you can build great apps using the technology you know. Developers complain. RIM releases native SDK.
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What?
Of your examples, the first comes closest to reality. It's wrong, of course, but you could make a good argument.
The original iPhone browser wasn't (and still isn't) good enough for high-quality web apps. Of course, at the time, neither was any browser. If you'll recall, Apple didn't seem interested in third-party apps at the time. They were much more interested in controlling what apps were on the platform. (The ability to local/offline local/offline web app with a nice icon on the home screen icon
Developer licensing (Score:2)
Why is it that so many corporations who hire lots of programmers try to push HTML + Javascript for everything?
Perhaps some of it is that startups want to get their apps onto a device without having to sign up for an expensive developer license. License agreements to develop native applications for game consoles and BREW phones have historically required overhead that startup companies could not afford.
Komodo, anyone? (Score:2, Interesting)
So, basically Google is taking it on itself to do for Chrome what ActiveState did for Mozilla years ago -- which led to the excellent and constantly improving Komodo IDE (build on the Mozilla framework)?
html, javacript, and css? (Score:2)
Well (Score:2)
I didn't, but now I know to avoid them like the plague.
And there's another good reason.
Re:But... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the Chromebook. They already have a desktop web OS, which competes with Windows and Apple laptops, and it sure makes sense being able to develop web apps or Chrome apps from that environment.
Re:But... (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine if Microsoft had released an MS-branded laptop which only allowed you to use HTML+Javascript and Silverlight apps, and then released a development environment which ran under Silverlight.
That'd be as retarded as this is.
Re:But... (Score:5, Funny)
But this is Google! Goooooooooooogle!
Wrong. (Score:2)
Imagine if Microsoft had released an MS-branded laptop which only allowed you to use HTML+Javascript and Silverlight apps, and then released a development environment which ran under Silverlight.
That'd be as retarded as this is.
No it wouldn't.
If they gave away all of the software for free, integrated online services for free, if the software were based on an FOSS core, new very essential core components itself were released as FOSS (V8 anyone?) which all would basically prevent long-term lock-in powers for
Intriguing ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess Chromebooks are selling well --- but I haven't seen one in a store (I avoid "un-Best Buy") --- or one in real life.
Yet
I'll have to keep an eye out
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I've looked at them ... not for me, but for the sort of person that I sometimes eed to suppport. Like setting them up with a Linux laptop it takes the vast majority of the support issues away while not really removing any capabilities normally required by this sort of person. Not a bad deal, although it would be nice of they started pushing the higher res screens at better prices.
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dude, wtf? your best zinger for Best Buy is "un-Best Buy"? Here's one, how about "Worst Buy"? That's low hanging fruit. I'm not trying too hard right now because I'm drunk, but just imagine all the possibilities.
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Embrace and extend (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you remember those words. That was how Microsoft set the web back 20 years by killing standards compliance. Now google is the evil.
Re:Embrace and extend (Score:4, Insightful)
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Perhaps, but at least Chrome is available on multiple platforms. Microsoft non-compliance was aimed at lock-in to Windows. Google's seems to be aimed at making it possible to do most everything from a 'web browser'. A loftier goal and hard to call 'evil'. Where do new standards come from if not this kind of experimentaion?
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If "can sync data when you're online" => "web app" then thanks to rsync I've just wep-appified EVERYTHING, fuck yeah!
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As if HTML, CSS and Javascript was a desirable combination for anything ...
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People have been proclaiming the end of Slashdot for years, but commercial spam taking hold is the fourth horseman of this particular apocalypse.
JS file APIs, MTP, and Rhmsoft File Manager (Score:2)
If Google was actually interested in pushing the limits of the Web as a platform, they'd find a way to provide local file access from JavaScript.
Google could even call it something like chrome.fileSystem [chrome.com] or File API [w3.org].
I bought a Nexus 10 and was horrified to learn that it had no out-of-the-box capability to access local files of any kind
Then you didn't try plugging your into a Windows PC to copy files on and off it using MTP. (On Linux, recent versions of gvfs have added MTP support, and it should land in Ubuntu LTS next year.) The other way is to go to Google Play Store and download Rhmsoft File Manager. I use it on my first-generation Nexus 7 tablet to browse SMB shares over Wi-Fi, copy files to the device's internal memory, and launch them on the device.
it can't even display something as simple and universal as a PDF file on a USB flash drive.
I'm over 98 p
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Let's not forget that DropBox and Google Sync are both useful for moving files around from most platforms to any other.
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MS owns ntfs, but fat16 is unencumbered. this is why macs can access fat16 drives as well, and can utilize windows disk network resources if they're in that format. your 98% excuse is bollucks.
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I've been waiting patiently for years to see full local file access added to JavaScript, so that I can start using HTML/JavaScript for general app development.
You could try node-webkit [github.com]. Yes, it supports the FileSystem API.
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The web technologies are written in C++
But the C++ binaries are tied to the processor architecture and don't have a simple delivery process around it. The best they have is: it's pre-installed (like the operating system).
Web technologies do have that, because basically every user-facing device has a browser installed by default.