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Google’s not-so-secret new OS

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Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#361

Post by klibertp »

throwawaydbfif wrote: post #228
caltelt wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, it seems to me like the typical webdev coming from C#/Java really wants the class syntax. I disagree with it, but I don't think it's just MS that's pushing it through, and even if it is, there's definitely an audience for it.

I've used a ton of languages over the years and vastly prefer Java type syntax when working on larger projects. The forced organization tends to lead towards some level of mandatory code clarity. Something greatly lacking in Js land. OO is a bad word these days and functional is all the rage, even though functional languages were largely superceded by OO languages eons ago for many reasons people are slowly redicover…

> strong typing and object syntax are practically a neccesary evil for maintaining readability

No, it's not like that.

You can write readable code in any language as long as you can write readable code. It sounds tautologic, but what I mean is that ability to write readable code is a skill separate from writing code or knowing a particular language.

Strong static typing - as just about any tool and language feature - can have both good and bad effects on code readability. In the end, the readability (so also maintainability and other related metrics) depends on the skill of a particular developer in the largest part.

Both OO and FP techniques, as well as all the language features, are the same. You can misuse (or ignore) them all.

What we need is to make an "average developer" better at writing code, not more bondage and discipline in our tools. The latter is (a lot) easier, so that's where we focus our efforts, but - in my opinion - it's not going to solve the problem.

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#362

Post by snvzz »

michaelmrose wrote: post #249

It was unfortunately obvious that the writer had insufficient tech chops when use the phrase "a post-API programming model" But pressing on how somehow manages to blame the lack of updates to android phones on the modularity of the Linux kernel. The joke of course being that linux is monolithic and googles new OS is a microkernel ergo more modular. The quote is "...however. I also have to imagine the Android update p…

> Its not merely not a flaw in the underlying linux kernel its not a technical issue at all.

I believe he's talking about having a driver API. Fuchsia also runs its drivers in userspace, which is the proper design in a post-Liedtke world. (principle of minimality)

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#363

Post by flukus »

pjc50 wrote: post #310
michaelmrose wrote: post #249

It was unfortunately obvious that the writer had insufficient tech chops when use the phrase "a post-API programming model" But pressing on how somehow manages to blame the lack of updates to android phones on the modularity of the Linux kernel. The joke of course being that linux is monolithic and googles new OS is a microkernel ergo more modular. The quote is "...however. I also have to imagine the Android update p…

There's one design decision in Linux that makes this slightly harder than it needs to be in this situation: Linux's lack of a driver ABI. At the moment, phones include all sorts of custom drivers for very specific versions of the hardware. The OEMs ought to send these upstream, but don't want to. You can't build your own kernel and upgrade without breaking all the binary-only drivers. Android falls between two stools…

> There's one design decision in Linux that makes this slightly harder than it needs to be in this situation: Linux's lack of a driver ABI.

This is just an excuse. The reality is the manufacturers still have the mentality that once something is sold their responsibility ends. We see the exact same results on certain OS's that do have stable ABI's. You've probably made a transaction recently on a device that uses an old and unpatched version of windows CE.

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#364

Post by kpil »

Merovius wrote: post #276
michaelmrose wrote: post #249

It was unfortunately obvious that the writer had insufficient tech chops when use the phrase "a post-API programming model" But pressing on how somehow manages to blame the lack of updates to android phones on the modularity of the Linux kernel. The joke of course being that linux is monolithic and googles new OS is a microkernel ergo more modular. The quote is "...however. I also have to imagine the Android update p…

> It was unfortunately obvious that the writer had insufficient tech chops when use the phrase That's a direct quote from the linked page. Unless you are suggesting that the authors of fuchsia have "insufficient tech chops".

They can be caught up in the same functional stupidity as everyone else at a large corporation.

If someone important enough says "decouple" and "monolith are bad" often enough, those arguments will be used to support more or less all changes as they already got leverage in the organisation.

The actual reasons could be something else, possibly as simple as they would like to control the OS, and possibly also that it's cool to write OSes.

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#365

Post by mercer »

flukus wrote: post #350
mercer wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) The fact that webapps can run relatively well strikes me as hopeful, considering how much more inefficient using HTML/CSS/JS is compared to Java applets. Or is the latter not the case (honest question)? 2) I'm not sure if our expectations have lowered much. Perhaps it's more that mobile interfaces are generally simpler and thus easier to make 'native enough'? Although I think there's more going on in regards to 2.…

> considering how much more inefficient using HTML/CSS/JS is compared to Java applets. Or is the latter not the case (honest question)? It's a really interesting question actually because it's so hard to compare the two. On any objective measure, today's web apps are much better than applets in terms of responsiveness, etc. But then again, an applet could run on machines with 16MB of RAM total. I think you'd be hard…

> Modern web apps can score better here, but quite often they don't. The more complex the become the less native they get, scrolling, text input, etc are generally OK (unless your an arshole that overrides scroll behaviour), but html still doesn't have an equivalent for native table views and the goodies (navigation, resizing, performance) that comes with them.

Oh yeah, complex UI stuff is definitely a good reason to avoid web apps.

But for many, probably even most apps it's precisely scrolling, text input, and other 'basic' stuff that matters, and in those cases a web app's 'default' will be more native.

> For me the skinning does matter though, I have a beautiful, consistent desktop that browsers (not even electron apps) shit all over. When something doesn't look quite right from the second you open it it magnifies all the other differences.

I agree on a personal level, but I suspect we're outliers. Can't substantiate that at the moment though, so I might be wrong.

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#366

Post by flukus »

piyush_soni wrote: post #192
username223 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Webapps in the sense of "fancy JavaScript" are no better than Applets. Google has the infrastructure, money, and business model to put most of the code on their servers and write native clients. Modulo privacy issues, they have found a solution.

Oh I bet they are! Like, anything is better than those slow, buggy and annoying Java Applets and I'm so thankful to god they're over. Did anyone ever notice how slow they were not only to 'run', but to initiate and start doing just about anything. I always knew it was a java applet even before it started anything because of its characteristic loading behavior.

Now remember that they ran on machines with 16MB of RAM. Could this page even render on a machine like that?

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#367

Post by pmilot »

snvzz wrote: post #362
michaelmrose wrote: post #249

It was unfortunately obvious that the writer had insufficient tech chops when use the phrase "a post-API programming model" But pressing on how somehow manages to blame the lack of updates to android phones on the modularity of the Linux kernel. The joke of course being that linux is monolithic and googles new OS is a microkernel ergo more modular. The quote is "...however. I also have to imagine the Android update p…

> Its not merely not a flaw in the underlying linux kernel its not a technical issue at all. I believe he's talking about having a driver API. Fuchsia also runs its drivers in userspace, which is the proper design in a post-Liedtke world. (principle of minimality)

Even when talking about driver updates, the argument is nonsensical. Android updates already require a full reboot of the device at the end of the update process, so new drivers can (and are) already be loaded into the kernel.

The update problem on Android is indeed a policy issue, not a technical one.

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#368

Post by flukus »

72deluxe wrote: post #319
josefx wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So were Java Applets with AWT. Users hated that, so Sun tried PLAF Uh, Java AWT was the native toolkit. Swing was the non native UI with the ugly METAL default Look and Feel. There are some nice custom Look and Feel implementations that don't try to emulate a platform, I think Matlab uses one for its UI.

Oddly you see non-native toolkits these days for many apps, and users don't seem as bothered anymore, unless I am mistaken? For example, look at Windows 10 and the mishmash of controls (are they flat? or do they have a bevel?) available from the control panel, settings app, old COM dialogs, MMC etc. etc.

> For example, look at Windows 10 and the mishmash of controls (are they flat? or do they have a bevel?) available from the control panel, settings app, old COM dialogs, MMC etc. etc.

One of the last straws for me was the built in mail app that had this awful background image. Too many flashbacks of shitty access apps.

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#369

Post by flukus »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #331
72deluxe wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly you see non-native toolkits these days for many apps, and users don't seem as bothered anymore, unless I am mistaken? For example, look at Windows 10 and the mishmash of controls (are they flat? or do they have a bevel?) available from the control panel, settings app, old COM dialogs, MMC etc. etc.

> and users don't seem as bothered anymore What choice do we have? Everyone's doing their own walled garden, so it's not like I can go and find an alternative SaaS / operating system with same features but better UI...

Linux has two options that offer a lot more consistency than you'll find on windows.

Re: Google’s not-so-secret new OS

#370

Post by Piskvorrr »

lupin_sansei wrote: post #216
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…

There are products that already allow the running of Android apps on Windows: http://www.greenbot.com/article/3129740/android/the-best-pro... I've never tried it or seen anyone do it though.

Well, it's mostly emulation, with some paravirtualization on top. Not wonderful, but recently it's gotten at least bearable.
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