Anyone know if I can easily port an OpenGL ES-1.1 based application, written in C++, to FirefoxOS? Or will I have to re-write it in HTML5/js?
You can probably compile it to asm.js and use WebGL (OpenGL ES 2.0).
Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war
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Re: Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war
#22Anyone know if I can easily port an OpenGL ES-1.1 based application, written in C++, to FirefoxOS? Or will I have to re-write it in HTML5/js?
You can compile your C++ with emscripten to asm.js target. HTML5 has WebGL which is based OpenGL ES 2.0.
More than 95% of all FirefoxOS devices support WebGL and the number of FirefoxOS users is increasing rapidly: http://webglstats.com
I suggest you this blog series, this guy ported his OpenGL game demos to WebGL and wrote long articles about it (Part 77 - 82): http://www.sea-of-memes.com/LetsCode77/LetsCode77.html
Re: Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it possible to write good mobile apps in JS and HTML, compared to Android or iOS? I don't know much about mobile programming, but it seems much harder for JS to compete with native apps, no?
The startup I work for was approached some time ago by Firefox in order to ship our app on FFOS (our app has ~1 million daily users, so we regularly have this kind of proposals). I did not participate in this firsthand, but from what I gathered from my colleagues, the FFOS SDK is so atrocious that sadly the idea of porting our app to this OS is laughable. On the other hand, we are fully committed to our iOS and Andro…
I tinkered with Android development when the original Google Developer Phone came out (aka G1). And, after years of not paying it any attention, because my focus was on server development, I've started learning my way around it again. It's not even the same world. So much of the tedium of developing in Java has gone away, due to better libraries, much better tooling, and just all around a bigger/better ecosystem. Making apps for Android, even without starting with a third party framework or tool, is vastly less time-consuming than it used to be.
I believe it's fair to say Firefox OS SDK will get better. I suspect we'll see interesting things happen just because it is primarily JavaScript+HTML5. There are a half dozen (or more) projects to make it possible to make Android and iOS apps in JavaScript, and they're popular, despite having dramatically less support and tooling available (as much as I hate Java, and I really do hate Java, Android Studio almost makes it tolerable).
I haven't seen the Firefox OS SDK yet, though I plan to check it out, and pick up some kind of dev phone soonish, but I would bet that it's at least on par with some of the early JavaScript+native frameworks cropping up lately. Stuff like Ionic, React Native, etc. All of those are new and sloppy and don't have settled toolchains, etc. But, the desire to work in JavaScript instead of ObjC or Java is pretty strong for many people, as evidenced by the huge quantity of people doing it despite it probably being more effort than coding in the standard language of the platform.
I think it's kinda like desire paths: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path
JavaScript is the path a lot of people want to walk for making mobile apps. Firefox OS is the first to make it the primary way to develop apps for the platform. I suspect the application developer uptake will be very rapid; probably more rapid than previous platforms, and more rapid than the actual user uptake. This is a platform that allows you to use your existing web development skills right out of the box...and there are a lot more web developers than Java or ObjC developers in the world.
Re: Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war
#24I'm unreasonably excited about Firefox OS. Android really isn't open enough for my taste, and my trust of Google has diminished over the years, as they've encroached on more and more of the web and my data on that web. Apple has always been awful for the open web. And I'd rather write JavaScript and HTML than Java.
> Apple has always been awful for the open web. Apple played a massive part in the success of the mobile web and responsive design. The release of Mobile Safari and WebKit was a watershed moment. Before that point, the mobile web largely consisted of separate, pretty awful sites on WML. Afterwards, most mobile platforms had a default web browser based on WebKit, and the mobile web transformed as a result. I'm not say…
OK, I'll give them credit for strong-arming the web into giving up its addiction to Adobe Flash. That was a win for the open and standards-based web.
Re: Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war
#25I'm unreasonably excited about Firefox OS. Android really isn't open enough for my taste, and my trust of Google has diminished over the years, as they've encroached on more and more of the web and my data on that web. Apple has always been awful for the open web. And I'd rather write JavaScript and HTML than Java.
Android's open enough for me, but what I find unhappy is that Google seems intent on tricking people into revealing more and more information. It often reminds me to turn on history tracking, despite having said no many times. Every time I use the Play store, it tries to get me to enter a phone number. The way it does this is by popping up a dialog, with no buttons except continue . It makes it look like you MUST do…
>MS could fix it all immediately by offering Android app compatibility.
Did you also switch over to the Blackberry and Jolla?
Re: Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war
#26I'm unreasonably excited about Firefox OS. Android really isn't open enough for my taste, and my trust of Google has diminished over the years, as they've encroached on more and more of the web and my data on that web. Apple has always been awful for the open web. And I'd rather write JavaScript and HTML than Java.
> Apple has always been awful for the open web. Apple played a massive part in the success of the mobile web and responsive design. The release of Mobile Safari and WebKit was a watershed moment. Before that point, the mobile web largely consisted of separate, pretty awful sites on WML. Afterwards, most mobile platforms had a default web browser based on WebKit, and the mobile web transformed as a result. I'm not say…
The Nokia N80, launched in 2006, came with a Webkit-based browser. WAP had mostly died in the smartphone market long before the iPhone came along, in no small part thanks to Opera Mini & Mobile.
Re: Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war
#27I'm unreasonably excited about Firefox OS. Android really isn't open enough for my taste, and my trust of Google has diminished over the years, as they've encroached on more and more of the web and my data on that web. Apple has always been awful for the open web. And I'd rather write JavaScript and HTML than Java.
> Apple has always been awful for the open web. Apple played a massive part in the success of the mobile web and responsive design. The release of Mobile Safari and WebKit was a watershed moment. Before that point, the mobile web largely consisted of separate, pretty awful sites on WML. Afterwards, most mobile platforms had a default web browser based on WebKit, and the mobile web transformed as a result. I'm not say…
I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but Webkit was originally a fork of KHTML, which is LGPL, so they were required/forced to release it under the same license.
And based on the their upstream contributions[1] it doesn’t look like it was a gesture of goodwill.
Re: Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war
#28I would love to try a firefox OS phone.
Verizon seems like an odd choice in the U.S., to me they seem like a 'premium' brand somewhat more expensive than their competitors, while Firefox OS, at least prior to know, seems to have been positioning itself as a budget option.
Re: Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war
#29I'm unreasonably excited about Firefox OS. Android really isn't open enough for my taste, and my trust of Google has diminished over the years, as they've encroached on more and more of the web and my data on that web. Apple has always been awful for the open web. And I'd rather write JavaScript and HTML than Java.
I like Android (the AOSP) in itself, but I very much dislike how Google ships it with a lot of their own (proprietary) apps that can't be uninstalled (the usual way).
Some of Google's features may be nice, but I don't want them to track me and get all my private data from my phone.
I'm using CyanogenMod without all the Google apps. It's nice, but the experience just isn't as nice as you have it with Google-Android. Most of the features could be done without tracking users, however.
Re: Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war
#30I'm unreasonably excited about Firefox OS. Android really isn't open enough for my taste, and my trust of Google has diminished over the years, as they've encroached on more and more of the web and my data on that web. Apple has always been awful for the open web. And I'd rather write JavaScript and HTML than Java.
Is it possible to write good mobile apps in JS and HTML, compared to Android or iOS? I don't know much about mobile programming, but it seems much harder for JS to compete with native apps, no?
I think it might depend on the OS. In iPhone or Android, I think it is possible to write a 'good' mobile app, but not as good as the native apps.
In Firefox OS, an OS designed from the start with the idea of JS/HTML apps? I don't know, we'll see, I guess!