Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US

Post by sosborn » Sat, May 21, 2016, 6:57 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #202

slantyyz wrote: post #178

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As someone who started using computers in 1982, I would have to disagree. Computers today are incredibly powerful, and because of that, operating systems and applications have become complex beasts themselves. My first computer only had 4K and a text based interface. As an end user, I only needed to know a handful of commands. Most navigation was done through multiple choice text menus. Even moving into the early 90s…

> Back in the old days, all you had to do was load and run stuff off discretely labeled physical media like a cassette or floppy. You only ran one program at a time. You didn't need to worry about network security, because the only network you could afford consisted of you putting your sneakers on and bringing a disk to another machine. Your computer was turned off with a switch. There was no need for a "shut down" c…

Post by tuxracer » Sat, May 21, 2016, 9:23 PM UTC

jjnoakes wrote: post #237

spb wrote: post #137

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Moreover, Chromebooks, when paired with a good cloud IDE like https://c9.io , are excellent for writing code - more so than any "traditional" OS, since the local system is only dedicating resources toward keeping the interface responsive, and not wasting them on background distractions like local search indexing or filesystem defragmentation. Meanwhile, if you accidentally forkbomb a cloud development server, your mu…

I bet I could use it for an hour and come up with a long list of why I would hate that environment. But off the top of my head: Not all developers work on projects which can be hosted by a third party company and require always-on super-stable internet access.

Post by ssalazar » Sat, May 21, 2016, 10:18 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #158

seabrookmx wrote: post #146

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Web assembly gets first class access to browser API's and the DOM, which Applets never did. Applets had virtually zero ability to communicate with the webpage they were contained in. This paired with the fact that most users at the time (on Windows) had to download additional nagware to run them, and you have a recipe for disaster. Web assembly is a continuation of JavaScript and ASM JS and is poised to be a much bet…

Why would they need the ability to communicate with the webpage they were contained in? They can communicate with themselves. What's the difference between a single-page web application in WebAssembly and a single-page java applet in java bytecode? What's the DOM adding? Suppose I want to run Quake in the browser. Applets already do that. It's not a new idea or a new technology.

Post by stephenr » Sun, May 22, 2016, 5:30 AM UTC

tuxracer wrote: post #243

jjnoakes wrote: post #237

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I bet I could use it for an hour and come up with a long list of why I would hate that environment. But off the top of my head: Not all developers work on projects which can be hosted by a third party company and require always-on super-stable internet access.

Web apps can work completely offline if the developer adds support https://codelabs.developers.google.com/codelabs/offline/ Not sure why this misconception about web apps requiring "always-on super-stable internet access" persists when this technology has been available for quite some time (in the form of App Cache before Service Workers)

Post by ksec » Sun, May 22, 2016, 9:08 AM UTC

tkubacki wrote: post #177

ksec wrote: post #170

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For the usage you describe, i would actually recommand a Tablet ( iPad ) rather then Chromebook. I was actually waiting to upgrade to iPad Air 3, but instead we got a 9.7" iPad Pro. From a hardware perpestive, once the iPad Air gets 4GB Ram, there is very little difference between it and the Chromebook.

difference is $200