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Google’s not-so-secret new OS

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Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#91

Post by frik »

throwawaydbfif wrote: post #56
resoluteteeth wrote: post #12

Is this an actual plan of Google as a company, or is this some sort of Microsoft-style war between divisions where the Chrome team has just decided on its own that the future is based on Chrome and Dart? Also, considering the way that the ARC runtime for Chromebooks was a failure and had to be replaced by a system that apparently essentially runs Android in a container, will it really be possible for a completely dif…

I would say that Google is trying to replace JavaScript with dart in any way they possibly can. The reason is simple, JavaScript is an open standard, dart is owned by google. Their reasons that "dart is better" is the typical google koolaid before they attempt a market takeover. As we've seen over and over with Android, chrome, and AMP especially. Google loves to make glass house open source projects you can't touch.…

Microsoft is lobbying to get their favorite syntax into JS6/7. Who wanted the class syntax? etc And TypeScript and WebAssembly are part of their plan. Ultimately, they want to recompile their 27 year old Office codebase from C/C++ to web browser.

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#92

Post by maverick_iceman »

flukus wrote: post #71
thewhitetulip wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we do. I want my phone and my laptop to be in total sync, I want to be able to write code on my mobile which I can just continue on my laptop without any hindrance, currently I have a mac and an android phone, I do have Go and Python installed on my mobile, but it isn't that great to code on my mobile, I have to host the repo on an internal version of gogs to get the code synced up and I still have to manually p…

Why stop there? I want to dock my phone to the TV and work with a remote control, I want to dock it to the car and control it with steering wheel buttons.

Of course, that's the natural progression.

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#93

Post by lliamander »

mcguire wrote: post #34
vlunkr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could always develop remotely, use your phone to ssh into a more powerful machine. Use tmux or screen and pick up right where you were on a laptop or desktop. This is far more compelling IMHO.

Tmux or screen? Wouldn't it be nice if there were a graphics-over-the-network system?

I remember the glee of the first time I got an X-Window application to run over the network. I was so confused though because the "x-server" is the software you run on your client machine.

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#95

Post by throwawaydbfif »

skybrian wrote: post #69
throwawaydbfif wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that Google is trying to replace JavaScript with dart in any way they possibly can. The reason is simple, JavaScript is an open standard, dart is owned by google. Their reasons that "dart is better" is the typical google koolaid before they attempt a market takeover. As we've seen over and over with Android, chrome, and AMP especially. Google loves to make glass house open source projects you can't touch.…

But the thing is, you really can fork. There's nothing preventing forking. I think you're complaining about merging. But every open source project has standards about what they merge. Try getting a patch into Linux and see what they say; it won't be a rubber stamp.

Yeah, you can fork. Take AMP or Android for example.

With AMP, the instant you fork and change a single character of code it becomes incompatible because part of AMP is a verifier that makes sure only the official version is used with Google's cache. Without being able to serve your custom AMP pages from Google's AMP cache the entire point to its existence goes away. The reason? Typical "security". "Tampered" versions of AMP could "do bad things", laughable considering that vanilla web pages allow you to do absolutely anything javascript allows and google has no problem showing those pages in search results or letting them freewheel in a Chrome tab. If Google wanted AMP to be open they would have built it into their chrome browser so the browser could enforce restrictions while allowing users to run whatever customized AMP implementation they want.

And Android. Android used to honor the promise of being open. Years ago. This was before every manufacturer was encouraged to lock bootloaders, and back when platform SDK's and drivers for hardware were generally available even if they were kinda hard to get. This was also before the Android kernel heavily diverged from mainline Linux, and before "google play services" grew from a tiny app to a framework that powers half the OS features.

Nowadays you can only run your own Android on devices specifically built for it. Open distributions like CyanogenMod are dead or dying. Google Play services is closed and proprietary, and probably about 95% of popular apps require it to work. Even if you manage to get your own Android distribution built and running you will need to side load all your apps, and most apps just don't work because they've been built to depend on proprietary bits that Google has snuck in all over the place.

Google is better at the "embrace, extend, extinguish" strategy than Microsoft ever was. So good, in fact, that they have many well intentioned people defending them to the death even as they choke off the very open source projects they created. Virtually every platform that Google runs for more than about 5 years goes from completely open to something impractical to run yourself. If you don't believe me look into any of their older projects that are "open source".

After a certain point it's free software as in "free coupons". Somewhere in the mix, eventually, the price of of their "charity" is passed on to you.

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#96

Post by stcredzero »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #82
MarkMc wrote: post #74

It bothers me that Google does not seem particularly interested in doing the one thing that would make their Android platform absolutely dominant: Allow Chrome to run Android apps on Mac and Windows. Google has already done 90% of the necessary work by adding Android apps to ChromeOS. Two and a half years ago it created "App Runtime for Chrome" which demonstrated that Android apps could run on Windows and Mac in a li…

The amount of additional code required to support Android apps on the Chrome browser would be far too great. No one wants to download a 500MB+ browser.

With Chrome, people could let Chrome download it for them in the background.

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#97

Post by mastazi »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #57
mastazi wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> developers seem too reluctant to get on-board too Might be limited to your specific environment though. As a counter-example among the people I know there are far more .NET devs than the total sum of iOS/Mac/Android devs.

Limited to their specific environment? You mean the world?

Well there is life outside of the SV :-p

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#98

Post by ghostly_s »

foota wrote: post #89
bitmapbrother wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of additional code required to support Android apps on the Chrome browser would be far too great. No one wants to download a 500MB+ browser.

Maybe I'm just jaded from downloading video games, but, at least on a landline, I don't think most people would care?

For people who've already committed to Chrome, it might just be a one-time annoyance. But the time when Chrome had an seeming lock on the top seat in the browser wars has come and gone. I can definitely see this hurting new adoption, which would rightly make Google nervous.

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#99

Post by bitmapbrother »

foota wrote: post #89
bitmapbrother wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of additional code required to support Android apps on the Chrome browser would be far too great. No one wants to download a 500MB+ browser.

Maybe I'm just jaded from downloading video games, but, at least on a landline, I don't think most people would care?

It could make sense as an optional download if you do want Android support. But, Google would never increase the download size of their browser to that extent.

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#100

Post by mastazi »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #90
mastazi wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows [...] [is] terrible on tablets and phones. Surface tablets seem to be doing OK though.

How many touch optimized apps are on the Surface? I haven't seen many. The majority are still desktop apps and using desktop apps on a tablet isn't a very good UI experience.

Yes I know where you are coming from but as I said in another comment I don't think that the input method should be the main element that defines the difference between a laptop and a tablet.
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