Getting started on Firefox OS apps with AngularJS • Hacker News Board

Re: Getting started on Firefox OS apps with AngularJS

#11

Post by AlexanderDhoore » Wed, Feb 20, 2013, 1:20 PM UTC

janjongboom wrote: post #10

AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #8

I tried some FirefoxOS phones for about 20 minutes @ fosdem. As a developer the idea of native html is tempting. As a normal user I'm rather unimpressed. "What can this do, that my Android can't?" Without the answer to that question, people won't get it.

For this (as I share his opinion), read the article from my collegue Sergi Mansilla about the promise of Firefox OS: http://sergimansilla.com/blog/promise-of-ffos/

I tried to analyse that article a bit.

Paragraph 1: Ok, so we have some serious competition.

2: We are not going to beat them, we are changing the game.

3: There is massive developer potential.

4: Html sucks, or does it?

5: Frameworks and compile-to-js save the day!

6: Not just HTML5, standardized HTML5!

7: Fixing the problem of "Several languages, frameworks, APIs" and "vendor lock-ins"

8: Mozilla can be trusted.

So 2, 6 and 7 are the big promises. And 3 and 5 is how they are going to do it. My question is this: yes there are lots of web developers, but are they skilled enough for more advanced challenges? And are you really solving the "Several languages, frameworks, APIs" problem? One could argue that there are way to many javascript compilers, frameworks... already!

Re: Getting started on Firefox OS apps with AngularJS

#12

Post by daleharvey » Wed, Feb 20, 2013, 1:36 PM UTC

AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #11

janjongboom wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For this (as I share his opinion), read the article from my collegue Sergi Mansilla about the promise of Firefox OS: http://sergimansilla.com/blog/promise-of-ffos/

I tried to analyse that article a bit. Paragraph 1: Ok, so we have some serious competition. 2: We are not going to beat them, we are changing the game. 3: There is massive developer potential. 4: Html sucks, or does it? 5: Frameworks and compile-to-js save the day! 6: Not just HTML5, standardized HTML5! 7: Fixing the problem of "Several languages, frameworks, APIs" and "vendor lock-ins" 8: Mozilla can be trusted. So…

'Are web developer smart enough to build apps' seems like a pretty disingenuous question.

And the problem isnt 'too many frameworks / languages', its the ones that run on a single platform requiring you to write the same app 5 times that are the problem.

Re: Getting started on Firefox OS apps with AngularJS

#13

Post by AlexanderDhoore » Wed, Feb 20, 2013, 1:45 PM UTC

daleharvey wrote: post #12

AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to analyse that article a bit. Paragraph 1: Ok, so we have some serious competition. 2: We are not going to beat them, we are changing the game. 3: There is massive developer potential. 4: Html sucks, or does it? 5: Frameworks and compile-to-js save the day! 6: Not just HTML5, standardized HTML5! 7: Fixing the problem of "Several languages, frameworks, APIs" and "vendor lock-ins" 8: Mozilla can be trusted. So…

'Are web developer smart enough to build apps' seems like a pretty disingenuous question. And the problem isnt 'too many frameworks / languages', its the ones that run on a single platform requiring you to write the same app 5 times that are the problem.

I agree it's a bit disingenuous. But I believe, for example, that the fact that Android is easier to develop for than iOS, delivers all the crappy "I just got out of college" java apps.

And although they promote it as the platform to rule them all, reality is: http://xkcd.com/927/

But I wish them all the best, of course.

Re: Getting started on Firefox OS apps with AngularJS

#14

Post by jlongster » Wed, Feb 20, 2013, 3:52 PM UTC

This is very cool, nice work!

Judging from your items in the list, it looks like you started with Mozilla's mortar library [1], which I work on, and completely rebuilt it. I really like how you've structured it and all the stuff you've included -- it's a much more powerful starting point than what we currently have with mortar.

We've been hard at work trying to figure out what we should do with mortar. Naturally several other starting points have emerged, because that's how the web works. We're excited about this. We, Mozilla, still want to give developers something they can use to easily get started, but we'll most likely refer to all the other ones too so the developer can choose between lots of libraries (ember, angular, requirejs, etc).

Thanks for this, I'll keep it in mind as we write documentation on MDN for writing Firefox OS apps!

[1] https://github.com/mozilla/mortar-list-detail

Re: Getting started on Firefox OS apps with AngularJS

#15

Post by jlongster » Wed, Feb 20, 2013, 4:07 PM UTC

thisone wrote: post #9

AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #8

I tried some FirefoxOS phones for about 20 minutes @ fosdem. As a developer the idea of native html is tempting. As a normal user I'm rather unimpressed. "What can this do, that my Android can't?" Without the answer to that question, people won't get it.

I've heard both the Firefox and Ubuntu mobile OSs described as developer phones (I believe this was on Click (BBC)). It made a bit of sense. If you're the type to immediately root your android phone and start running custom builds, then these OSs may give you even more room to run.

The released version will not just be targeted at developers. Right now there is a Firefox OS developer phone [1] that you can get, but when it officially comes out it will be a fully-featured phone targeted at low prices.

[1] http://www.geeksphone.com/