Um, Air, Silverlight, Java? A prediction of equal insight, "The sun will rise tomorrow."
Sergey Brin: Native Apps And Web Apps Will Converge Soon
21–30 of 36 posts
Re: Sergey Brin: Native Apps And Web Apps Will Converge Soon
#22I dont think they will converge that fast. I definitely don't see myself writing html and javascript code for a computer program. The web languages unfortunately are ad-hoc pieces of different technologies shuffled together. Ad-hoc is generally good, but its done in a disorganized way which is what I don't like about it. Why bring the same chaos to native?
html and javascript are like assembly language. when/if this convergence happens you'll be using something like GWT or NaCl.
Now, once we get there, can we ditch the brainfuck-quality intermediate layer and just go from GWT or whatever to native code?
But... isn't that called a native Java app?
Re: Sergey Brin: Native Apps And Web Apps Will Converge Soon
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
html and javascript are like assembly language. when/if this convergence happens you'll be using something like GWT or NaCl.
Now, once we get there, can we ditch the brainfuck-quality intermediate layer and just go from GWT or whatever to native code? But... isn't that called a native Java app?
i hope so and i think that's the kind of convergence he's talking about, being able to compile GWT to either target.
Re: Sergey Brin: Native Apps And Web Apps Will Converge Soon
#24Please excuse my ignorance but can someone explain to me what message is being given to developers? Is it to develop in Java (for Android) or to develop in HTML/css/Javascript combo?
Google is not giving a message, they are listening for the message that the developers are sending to them. That is the reason they gave for having separate but overlapping development stacks.
Re: Sergey Brin: Native Apps And Web Apps Will Converge Soon
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only thing that I've seen that tried to split executing application code between the display server (i.e. the bit you have locally) and the application process was NeWS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS I had great fun programming with this (especially with the Hypercard-like HyperNeWS environment). Once you the hang of interactive programming in PostScript it was a lot of fun. Of course, you could argue that we…
isn't this what X does?
Not really (at least not unless X has changed a lot since the last time I had much low level dealings with it) - NeWS allowed the client application to sent chunks of code to the display server, not just commands to display things. And not just chunks of any old code, but a full PostScript environment with all that it implies.
There was also a shell (psh) that allowed you to log in directly to a display server and interact with display objects. I remember logging into a colleagues NeWS server process (we had security turned off for some reason) and rotating one of his windows by 20 degrees just by running a single PostScript command.
Re: Sergey Brin: Native Apps And Web Apps Will Converge Soon
#26I've just had a flashback to the original JavaOne conference.
It took me quite a long time to remember that I spent that conference doing booth duty. I seem to remember some rather large gentlemen getting rather upset with us when we tried to carry our own boxes from our rental car to our stand....
Never get between a Teamster and his drayage pay. It's fun paying $1000 to move stuff 200 feet isn't it?
Re: Sergey Brin: Native Apps And Web Apps Will Converge Soon
#27I dont think they will converge that fast. I definitely don't see myself writing html and javascript code for a computer program. The web languages unfortunately are ad-hoc pieces of different technologies shuffled together. Ad-hoc is generally good, but its done in a disorganized way which is what I don't like about it. Why bring the same chaos to native?
"Ad-hoc is generally good, but its done in a disorganized way which is what I don't like about it."
I think each piece does it's job well, and better than if someone tried to somehow consolidate multiple web languages into one.
HTTP has proven itself robust and versatile, especially with the wide spread adoption of REST development strategies. It also allows you free choice of language to implement on the server. Before the popularity of web development took off, language choice was largely circumscribed by the environment to which you wanted to deploy (the current controversy over iPhone OS hearkens back to those days).
That's true of JavaScript in the browser today, but Javascript has proven flexible enough to allow for many different ways of programming in the browser (Cappuccino, jQuery, etc.). And simply by the size of its installed base, it is inspiring innovations in dynamic language performance that remind me of what happened with Java and byte-code virtual machines.
HTML and CSS split the job of content form and appearance nicely, and the speed of HTML5 adoption by competing browsers has been impressive, in my opinion. I think that the CSS approach of separating styling from the content is superior in many ways to traditional desktop development.
Re: Sergey Brin: Native Apps And Web Apps Will Converge Soon
#28I dont think they will converge that fast. I definitely don't see myself writing html and javascript code for a computer program. The web languages unfortunately are ad-hoc pieces of different technologies shuffled together. Ad-hoc is generally good, but its done in a disorganized way which is what I don't like about it. Why bring the same chaos to native?
"Ad-hoc is generally good, but its done in a disorganized way which is what I don't like about it." I think each piece does it's job well, and better than if someone tried to somehow consolidate multiple web languages into one. HTTP has proven itself robust and versatile, especially with the wide spread adoption of REST development strategies. It also allows you free choice of language to implement on the server. Bef…
I think the situation with web languages and technologies is vaguely like the situation with C++ in one particular way: It isn't that they're really good, it's more that they've been around so long, evolving at glacial pace, and there is such a huge community compelled to use them, that we've collectively figured out how to make them passably effective.
If I were designing a web application platform on purpose, major design criteria might be: 1) data and apps hosted remotely, 2) discoverable apps/services, 3) hypertext-style linking of resources, 4) ability to fully exploit client CPU and GPU power for UI, and for compute where appropriate, 5) consistency with common desktop UI concepts (like drag/drop), 6) flexibility in languages and developer tools, allowing for compiled, statically checked languages for those who like them. With the current web, I think we have 1-3, but not 4-6. (I think I would trade the enforced niceties of HTML/CSS for more flexibility in the UI.)
Re: Sergey Brin: Native Apps And Web Apps Will Converge Soon
#29Interesting. Isn't this kind of exactly what Paul Graham's been talking about for years?
Re: Sergey Brin: Native Apps And Web Apps Will Converge Soon
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
It took me quite a long time to remember that I spent that conference doing booth duty. I seem to remember some rather large gentlemen getting rather upset with us when we tried to carry our own boxes from our rental car to our stand....
Never get between a Teamster and his drayage pay. It's fun paying $1000 to move stuff 200 feet isn't it?
They really were quite menacing in a professional kind of way - even more so than corporate lawyers.