Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI • Hacker News Board

Re: Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

#31

Post by goodgracious » Tue, May 01, 2012, 3:46 AM UTC

wavephorm wrote: post #8

The "All-Web" paradigm is coming, folks. And it really doesn't matter how much you love your iPhone, or your Android, or Windows phone. Native apps are toast, in the long run. Your data is moving to the cloud -- your pictures, your music, your movies, and every document you write. It's all going up there, and local hard drives will be history within 3 years. And what that means is ALL software is heading there too. N…

Nonsense.

True, companies will encourage voluntarily uploading your stuff to their computers. Why shouldn't they? Just like they solicit your email address, track your movements, snarf your smartphone address book and other neat tricks. There's value in getting that info.

That doesn't mean everyone is going to fall for it. Some will, no doubt.

But GB's are getting cheaper every day. And not just for "cloud providers". How many terbaytes does one person need? You can fit your whole life's worth of data onto today's capacities of consumer digital storage.

Are we to imagine a future where consumers cannot purchase storage media? What drugs are you on?

The web is brittle. It's but one of many things that can be run over IP. You web-fanatics crack me up.

Re: Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

#32

Post by dustinrodrigues » Tue, May 01, 2012, 3:55 AM UTC

AndrewNoNumbers wrote: post #11

Time to boot back into Chrome OS on my Cr-48!

Maybe not, though:

"The latest Chrome OS release is only available for Samsung and Acer Chromebooks as Cr-48 Chromebooks will skip Chrome 19."

from http://googlesystem.blogspot.jp/2012/04/new-window-manager-f...

Re: Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

#33

Post by ryanhuff » Tue, May 01, 2012, 4:00 AM UTC

wavephorm wrote: post #21

furyofantares wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain why you believe native apps are toast in the long run, or how that's related to data moving to the cloud? Web apps solved the problem of having to figure out how to find, install, or update software and not having it everywhere you go. App stores have caught up on discovery/installation/updates, and mobile has solved the problem of not having it everywhere I go. Web apps will eventually catch up on pe…

Mobile apps, especially iOS apps, are hobbled by their curators. iPhone's don't even have an open file system and the platform was purposely designed so that apps are isolated, and funneled through a strict paradigm. This most certainly is not what I, or a lot of people want in a computing device -- it will not work, simply because a majority of innovators do not want to be locked into that universe. Apple has design…

Your reasons, while important and meaningful from a developers perspective, mean little to the consumer choosing between a native app and a mobile web app. What's in it for the consumer?

Re: Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

#34

Post by cageface » Tue, May 01, 2012, 4:01 AM UTC

wavephorm wrote: post #21

furyofantares wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain why you believe native apps are toast in the long run, or how that's related to data moving to the cloud? Web apps solved the problem of having to figure out how to find, install, or update software and not having it everywhere you go. App stores have caught up on discovery/installation/updates, and mobile has solved the problem of not having it everywhere I go. Web apps will eventually catch up on pe…

Mobile apps, especially iOS apps, are hobbled by their curators. iPhone's don't even have an open file system and the platform was purposely designed so that apps are isolated, and funneled through a strict paradigm. This most certainly is not what I, or a lot of people want in a computing device -- it will not work, simply because a majority of innovators do not want to be locked into that universe. Apple has design…

This most certainly is not what I, or a lot of people want in a computing device

Most people don't even understand what a filesystem is, nevermind whether it's open or not. I agree with you that data is moving online but that's orthogonal to the native vs web app question.

Re: Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

#35

Post by wavephorm » Tue, May 01, 2012, 4:01 AM UTC

kristopolous wrote: post #28

wavephorm wrote: post #8

The "All-Web" paradigm is coming, folks. And it really doesn't matter how much you love your iPhone, or your Android, or Windows phone. Native apps are toast, in the long run. Your data is moving to the cloud -- your pictures, your music, your movies, and every document you write. It's all going up there, and local hard drives will be history within 3 years. And what that means is ALL software is heading there too. N…

Even if you were 100% correct, hard drives aren't going anywhere. Browser cache is around 1GB and web developers are itching for vast landscapes of local storage systems. And where do you expect the operating system and marvelous web stack where all these things are created to reside? Burned in EEPROM? I think the consumer already can't really differentiate between what is local or over the internet, they don't know…

  Browser cache is around 1GB and web developers are itching
  for vast landscapes of local storage systems.

We're moving toward a computing world where hard drives don't even exist. Within 3 years we may see devices that have only persistent RAM. And for large files, I bet we'll see some nice competition between Dropbox, Google, Microsoft, and others which may eventually lead to making hard drives obsolete.

  Nah, don't think so; the computer is the computer. 
  Network... is not reliable, responsive, or resilient enough to.

Not yet, but I think we are steamrolling toward this conclusion.

Apple might have successfully convinced everyone into thinking that downloading software and installing it is some fancy new thing, but really just it's old-fashioned nonsense that is only necessary for their arcane software platform to work.

Re: Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

#36

Post by snarfy » Tue, May 01, 2012, 4:07 AM UTC

wavephorm wrote: post #8

The "All-Web" paradigm is coming, folks. And it really doesn't matter how much you love your iPhone, or your Android, or Windows phone. Native apps are toast, in the long run. Your data is moving to the cloud -- your pictures, your music, your movies, and every document you write. It's all going up there, and local hard drives will be history within 3 years. And what that means is ALL software is heading there too. N…

I'm waiting for it to come full circle - the day when the browser VM is so advanced it's basically a VMWare shim and each web page is really an OS that boots up, then we can finally throw away all the development crap collectively known as web duct tape and use real tools for software development.

Re: Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

#37

Post by JadeNB » Tue, May 01, 2012, 4:09 AM UTC

ajross wrote: post #27

lukeschlather wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's going to be a big watershed moment. One of the big cloud service providers is going to have a major data loss event. (Probably Google or Facebook, but who knows, Microsoft or Amazon or a number of others are equally vulnerable.) At that point, it will be interesting to see how far into the rabbit hole we've gone and how we react to seeing so much of our info vanish. I'll be hanging on to my local hard…

Google's been indexing the web and Amazon executing bazillions of legally binding sales without a "major data loss event" for 13 years now. I don't think that's really likely. At that scale, backups aren't really a .serious problem, as you have to have redundancy in the system for reliability reasons anyway. A "major privacy event" seems quite likely though.

> Google's been indexing the web and Amazon executing bazillions of legally binding sales without a "major data loss event" for 13 years now. I don't think that's really likely. At that scale, backups aren't really a .serious problem, as you have to have redundancy in the system for reliability reasons anyway.

How do you know that there hasn't been a major data loss event for Google? Would you be able to tell the difference if, say, a quarter of their data were gone?

(I agree that it would be more visible if Amazon had a major data loss, but the fact that you don't know about it doesn't mean it didn't. In fact, can you name a major data loss of which you do know? (I can't, but that may just be because I don't follow these things.) Surely one can't conclude from the fact that there are few well publicised examples that businesses do not suffer such losses.)

Re: Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

#38

Post by wavephorm » Tue, May 01, 2012, 4:10 AM UTC

cageface wrote: post #34

wavephorm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile apps, especially iOS apps, are hobbled by their curators. iPhone's don't even have an open file system and the platform was purposely designed so that apps are isolated, and funneled through a strict paradigm. This most certainly is not what I, or a lot of people want in a computing device -- it will not work, simply because a majority of innovators do not want to be locked into that universe. Apple has design…

This most certainly is not what I, or a lot of people want in a computing device Most people don't even understand what a filesystem is, nevermind whether it's open or not. I agree with you that data is moving online but that's orthogonal to the native vs web app question.

I want a "cloud filesystem", but want it controlled by ME, not Apple, and not iCloud. That's the problem. Apple wants to control the filesystem, and I, and others are not willing to accept this horrific scenario.

Re: Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

#39

Post by cageface » Tue, May 01, 2012, 4:14 AM UTC

wavephorm wrote: post #38

cageface wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This most certainly is not what I, or a lot of people want in a computing device Most people don't even understand what a filesystem is, nevermind whether it's open or not. I agree with you that data is moving online but that's orthogonal to the native vs web app question.

I want a "cloud filesystem", but want it controlled by ME, not Apple, and not iCloud. That's the problem. Apple wants to control the filesystem, and I, and others are not willing to accept this horrific scenario.

Yes you and your techie friends care about this. Most people don't.

Current trends indicate user attention is shifting even more to native, BTW: http://blog.flurry.com/bid/80241/Mobile-App-Usage-Further-Do...

The web vs native debate is really just a debate about which technology is better suited to building cloud client apps. HTML5 + JS is just another UI stack like Cocoa Touch or Android.

Re: Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

#40

Post by vacri » Tue, May 01, 2012, 4:21 AM UTC

wavephorm wrote: post #35

kristopolous wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you were 100% correct, hard drives aren't going anywhere. Browser cache is around 1GB and web developers are itching for vast landscapes of local storage systems. And where do you expect the operating system and marvelous web stack where all these things are created to reside? Burned in EEPROM? I think the consumer already can't really differentiate between what is local or over the internet, they don't know…

Browser cache is around 1GB and web developers are itching for vast landscapes of local storage systems. We're moving toward a computing world where hard drives don't even exist. Within 3 years we may see devices that have only persistent RAM. And for large files, I bet we'll see some nice competition between Dropbox, Google, Microsoft, and others which may eventually lead to making hard drives obsolete. Nah, don't t…

We're moving toward a computing world where hard drives don't even exist.

That will only happen when my pipe hits SATA speed.