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It's Time for Server-Side Browsers

camendesign.com

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Re: It's Time for Server-Side Browsers

#11
Could someone translate what this is actually trying to talk about into something clear? This blog post reminds me of someone on weed trying to relate to you this profound idea to you and rambles on stream of consciousness style. He wants there to be no 'centralization' (that is, servers) and have things run on a cloud of people's web browsers, yet at the same time it still talks to mysql somewhere? We won't need any one site to hold data and things just magically work by sending things out into the ether?

Re: It's Time for Server-Side Browsers

#12
post #7
post #6

sorry, I believe this was done ages ago - the remote desktop, such as VNC.

Way before that — the X window system.

It's not seamless though, and that makes it a very different idea.

He's talking about it working at the same level as a browser where it sees if you have HTML5, and if not falls back to flash, dynamically.

I can't imagine it being a high priority - fiddly, low return, creates huge performance issues. Lots of basic problems - you don't want someone supplying input to a game over a (latent) network. You don't want to be running instances of performance-intensive games on your webserver.

Still - the proposed idea is distinct from VNC or X.

Re: It's Time for Server-Side Browsers

#13
post #3

Or we could stop treating the HTTP/browser combination as an application delivery platform. It's unpopular here, but it's becoming exceptionally obvious as the correct choice.

The term "exceptionally obvious" might be over-stating the case a bit. Please could you expand on why you think that

Re: It's Time for Server-Side Browsers

#14
post #11

Could someone translate what this is actually trying to talk about into something clear? This blog post reminds me of someone on weed trying to relate to you this profound idea to you and rambles on stream of consciousness style. He wants there to be no 'centralization' (that is, servers) and have things run on a cloud of people's web browsers, yet at the same time it still talks to mysql somewhere? We won't need any…

Presumably he/she envisions a Facebook/BitTorrent hybrid with content replicated across the social graph.

You'd get drafted into storing images for some subset of the intersection of your social graph and several others, and the rest of your images would be served by someone(s) with whom your social graph intersects.

Presumably invitations would be via e-mail, or, if you wanted to be even more decentralized, QR code.

Re: It's Time for Server-Side Browsers

#15
I'm left wondering wether the idea is server-side browsers or browser-side servers. Plus, what's the problem with having to deal with JS client-side and something else server-side? And as for this...

"I therefore cannot redistribute and decentralise the server-side parts without expecting the end user to understand how to configure and run a server"

You can. It's called a desktop app.

Re: It's Time for Server-Side Browsers

#18
post #11

Could someone translate what this is actually trying to talk about into something clear? This blog post reminds me of someone on weed trying to relate to you this profound idea to you and rambles on stream of consciousness style. He wants there to be no 'centralization' (that is, servers) and have things run on a cloud of people's web browsers, yet at the same time it still talks to mysql somewhere? We won't need any…

Presumably he/she envisions a Facebook/BitTorrent hybrid with content replicated across the social graph. You'd get drafted into storing images for some subset of the intersection of your social graph and several others, and the rest of your images would be served by someone(s) with whom your social graph intersects. Presumably invitations would be via e-mail, or, if you wanted to be even more decentralized, QR code.

... Which assumes people keep their machines running 24/7 on unlimited data connections. It's a nice idea from a tech point of view, but for the life of me I cannot see how it's superior to what we already have.

Re: It's Time for Server-Side Browsers

#19
post #11

Could someone translate what this is actually trying to talk about into something clear? This blog post reminds me of someone on weed trying to relate to you this profound idea to you and rambles on stream of consciousness style. He wants there to be no 'centralization' (that is, servers) and have things run on a cloud of people's web browsers, yet at the same time it still talks to mysql somewhere? We won't need any…

Presumably he/she envisions a Facebook/BitTorrent hybrid with content replicated across the social graph. You'd get drafted into storing images for some subset of the intersection of your social graph and several others, and the rest of your images would be served by someone(s) with whom your social graph intersects. Presumably invitations would be via e-mail, or, if you wanted to be even more decentralized, QR code.

The best I have been able to make of it is that he wants to make a protocol where anyone can make an application/service and distribute arbitrary data via the browser. Basically, the internet at large except all of the 'computers' are actually web browsers running on actual computers.
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