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"The browser is the new OS" ...(really?)

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f0dder:
mouser: JAVA had the potential to do much of what you want. dotNET has the potential. Neither are going to be embraced for it, though. For a lot of applications, it simply does not make sense - sure thing, all your simple and not-so-dataheavy or precise-interaction stuff can be run "in a browser" or "on the magic platform", but as soon as user-interaction-timing critical things (games/whatever) or data-heavy tasks (graphics, video editing, ...) or "fast user feedback"/"smoothness" (drawing in a paint application) are involved, it's basically FAIL - even if everybody had low-latency high-bandwidth flat-rate fiber-optic internet connections.

And even after all these years of JIT research, we still need native code where speed is critical. OK, so dotNET can produce native code from a bytecode executable (see ngen.exe), but you still don't get native performance. And no, that doesn't really matter for a spreadsheet or word processor, but it sure as hell matters for games and video editing :)

Run-anywhere is a pipe dream. And even if technology matured and capable programming languages evolved (AND you convinced programmers to use them), monetary interests would block run-anywhere. It would suck anyway, basically having to code for the lowest common denominator - ugh.

I don't really mind simple-appsTM running in a browser or whatever, my grudge in the previous post was with morons who say "operating system == browser". Application server, perhaps, but no - not OS.

Lashiec has good points as well :)

mouser:
i think the evolution from java to .net is the right direction, and i think if you take a few more steps in that direction (and escape the proprietary nature of .net) you get to where i am suggesting: A [language AND hardware] neutral secure virtual platform for coding applications which has all the benefits seen in both the local binary applications and the browser-based services of the current day.

In 50 years people will not understand how it could have ever been the case that some programs ran on some brands of computers and some operating systems but not on others.  And they won't understand the concept of "local binary executables" vs "services running inside of a browser".

[note again that i don't think the browser is going to "take over" anything, rather i think that the benefits of the browser are going to be absorbed by modern programming languages and operating systems; so for me it's the concept of the browser program that will not survive as the key player in the long run (sorry firefox!)].

justice:
When was the last time the average programmer wrote games or video editing applications? Although flash games proves that it's possible, shockwave has 3d. I think a large percentage of all programming projects would be ok to code in a virtual platform that would be easier to code towards than the desktop situation we have today.

zridling:
Lashiec, how is webware proprietary when it uses open standards like HTML and ODF, and to a lesser extent, PDF?

By 2006, I was looking to get off the Microsoft wagon, and both open source software and open standards allowed me to. mouser mentioned how "platform independence" gave me the liberty to migrate away from Windows and stay away. Although it's a compromised substitute, at least with webware like Google Docs, I don't have to ever think about downloading, upgrading, or spending a penny on software I use mainly to write letters with.

mouser:
I guess zaine's post makes me want to underline why i surely hope that i am right and the people who believe the browser and thin client will take over are wrong.

For me, the idea of being dependent on a corporation to host my files and my applications is something i find very unappealing.  I do not want to move to web-based applications run on some corporation's server. I'm not a huge fan of google, and i don't like this trend to hosted and ad-supported webware.

I'm looking forward to the day where we all own our own software again, but where it is as ubiquitous, cross-platform and web-enabled as current web services are, and looking forward to an end to the ad-supported web services.

One of the tricks people always accused Microsoft of employing but which is a more widespread than microsoft is called "embrace and extend (and extinguish)":

"Embrace, extend and extinguish,"[1] also known as "Embrace, extend, and exterminate,"[2] is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice alleged[3] was used internally by Microsoft[4] to describe their strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to disadvantage its competitors."

The trick is to lock users into using a specific product and make it hard to move away.  Well the web services have figured out this game as well, and the fact that all your data is already on their servers and not transparently available to you (for the most part) makes it even easier.  I simply do not want to be dependent on corporations to hold all my data online.  It's not that i have paranoid thoughts that they are doing bad stuff with my data, it's that i want control of my stuff.  I don't want to be dependent on some corporation's marketing strategy to decide how i can access it and whether they want to let me move my data to some other competitor's service.

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