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A new breed of Chrome Apps

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Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#121

Post by droidist2 »

zenocon wrote: post #113
kllrnohj wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone who wants a stop gap though, should check this out: https://github.com/pwnall/chromeview A stop gap that adds at least 30mb to your application is a really shitty solution.

This isn't 100% true. The majority of that is the native shared library and binary resources. These could be hosted centrally and loaded from an APK. It isn't totally necessary to package them in an APK.

But in that case you're both drawing attention to the fact that your app is HTML5 (which thanks to Facebook is associated with a low quality experience) and also that the user has to download a separate library in order to run it. You'll likely get a significant portion of bad reviews solely motivated by this, just as with apps that require the user to download Adobe AIR separately.

For example: https://www.google.com/search?q="requires+adobe+air"+bloatwa...

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#122

Post by dalek_cannes »

alexandros wrote: post #3

Prediction: The much-anticipated convergence of Android and Chrome is near. These new Chrome apps are the programming model for the upcoming native Android webapps The next milestone I expect to see is V8 added alongside Dalvik as a first-class runtime for Android. Maybe in Android KitKat?

Prediction: Chrome (the browser) is slowly taking over your OS.

P.S. while trying to add this new type of app, I was tricked into signing into my chrome account, which I had managed to avoid all this time.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#123

Post by skeletonjelly »

IanChiles wrote: post #98
bluedino wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Firefox doesn't?

Firefox as of 23+ uses significantly less memory than Chrome (in my experience - your mileage may vary though)

Being able to identify which tabs are hogging CPU/memory is a deal breaker to me.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#124

Post by platinum1 »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #37

Our game RAD Soldiers is featured up on the games page: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rad-soldiers/dkiah... You can cross play with the iOS version, feel free to leave feedback :-)

I gave it a try on my Pixel and found that the touch didn't always seem to work as expected - for instance, when I rotate the globe, it would always try to center Africa on my finger and I couldn't tap on cities. I'd prefer if the game defaulted to fullscreen and allowed me to zoom out more - I assume this is because it was originally designed for smaller screens.

Also the game was capturing the ChromeOS volume, brightness, maximize keys (probably as F1-F10 keys) and discarding them.

Past issues specific to the packaged app - great game! Very polished. I love X-Com and this is right up my alley.

As one of the few who have actually used it, can you give us your perspective on the highlights and limitations of the packaged apps API?

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#125

Post by pjmlp »

coldtea wrote: post #115
pjmlp wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Server side is already too crowded, there is nothing that Dart brings to the table. The only way Dart will have any future is if Google makes a requirement to use it somewhere.

> Server side is already too crowded, there is nothing that Dart brings to the table. People could have said the same thing about Go, and yet it's catching up quite nicely. It doesn't have to bring something "new", just a coherent offer, and that it does.

> People could have said the same thing about Go, and yet it's catching up quite nicely.

Yes, in a few places that get lots of up-votes in HN.

In the real Fortune 500 world, it is all about JVM and .NET languages.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#126

Post by pjmlp »

coldtea wrote: post #116
pjmlp wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of your points were already covered by Smaltalk, and we all know where it is nowadays. Sorry, but I lost count of the languages I have used since 1986 and just don't believe in Dart ever taking off unless Google makes it so.

> Most of your points were already covered by Smaltalk, and we all know where it is nowadays. And less points were covered by Java, and still it got to the top of the language pile.

Sun did promote Java as much as they could, Google is not doing anything like that.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#127

Post by pjmlp »

mythz wrote: post #106
pjmlp wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of your points were already covered by Smaltalk, and we all know where it is nowadays. Sorry, but I lost count of the languages I have used since 1986 and just don't believe in Dart ever taking off unless Google makes it so.

Smalltalk? meets very few of those points, whilst it has inspired a number of languages it's not a real-world choice itself for developing complex web apps. Dart's closest language is JavaScript (which it also transpiles to) of which it presents a compelling option and holds a number of advantages over - esp. for maintaining large web apps. I've also used a number of languages in the last 15 years, and I've personall…

> - Provides a familiar language with clean semantics and low ceremony

Smaltalk had it.

> - Provides the fastest dev iteration times (there's no compile step, just edit + run in Dart VM/Dartium)

Smaltalk had it.

> - Provides ~10x faster start-up times than JS with snapshots (Dart VM)

Smaltalk VMs, actually Self, were where the first usuable JIT compilers were developed.

> - Provides faster run-time performance, that's predictable and can take advantage of real integers and SIMD instructions (VM Only)

Self and StrongTalk were quite performant. SIMD was not available back then.

> - Provides a unified object model so all classes from all libraries are interoperable

Smaltalk had it.

> - Providing a rich, well-defined, consistent API, real collections, removing JS WATs, smoothing over browser quirks

Smaltalk had real collections.

> - Provides a unified and composable IO model: Futures and Streams (repeating events)

Smalltalk has streams.

> - Provides a new powerful way to develop client apps with Web UI (Polymer/WebComponents) offering unprecedented levels of encapsulation and reusability

Fare enough regarding WebUI, as the web did not exist back then. However Smaltalk is responsible for the MVC concept.

> - Provides optimal dev and deployment options, you never have to worry about choosing the smallest libs as tree-shaking ensures only code used is compiled and minified

VM pruning in Smaltalk environments for deployment.

> - Providing "full-stack" dev environment, e.g. same language on client and server

This is only true when using Dartium. Transpiling to JavaScript does not count.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#129

Post by nraynaud »

kevingadd wrote: post #70
jrockway wrote: post #38

One thing that I think is really cool about Chrome Apps is that you can write USB drivers in Javascript that will run on any platform that runs Chrome or Chromium. This means that if you want to make a hardware device that syncs with the cloud, all you have to do is write what is essentially a web app, and anyone with Windows, OS X, Linux, or Chrome OS can use your thing. I'm personally working on a Chrome SDR app fo…

The documentation says chrome.usb only works on Chrome OS, are you sure it works in the actual browser? Last time I looked into this stuff it's nontrivial to let arbitrary user-mode applications manipulate arbitrary USB devices on Windows, so I'd be impressed if they got it working in a secure fashion and deployed it to the open web.

Chrome packaged apps give the same api in the browser as in chrome OS. The whole trick of packaged apps, is to get the same API on all OS. And along the way, google gets apps for chrome OS. I guess it's some kind of chicken and egg problem, to use the OS you need apps, but developers only develop if there are users. By having apps working on various OS the entice developers to create stuff that will also work in Chrome OS.

Re: A new breed of Chrome Apps

#130

Post by nraynaud »

reustle wrote: post #103
vondur wrote: post #17

"Chrome-specific code that means they won’t be able to run on other web browsers" This sounds vaguely familiar...

I agree. I would be much more excited about this announcement if it sounded a bit more open for other browsers to join in.

they will be free to copy the API. much of HTML5 is standardizing stuff already existing in various browsers (ironically, a lot of IE stuff). Firefox is already working on an API for USB for example.
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