A Web OS? Are You Dense?
teddziuba.com
teddziuba.com
a) Chrome is only out for Windows
b) Web applications can be more resource intensive than desktop apps
Is there anyone reading Hacker News who wasn't aware of these points? With WebKit/V8/etc, Chrome essentially acts as the language runtime, so the software stack he draws doesn't even get any taller (once the browser releases for all OSes).
It's been a real ride for me coming back into the web world after about 6 years of working on enterprise and desktop apps. Everyone in the web world seems to think we're just on the cusp of everything moving over to the web. Which is pretty much what they were saying when I was working in web programming 7 years ago. To the rest of the universe, desktop apps are still mainstays of day-to-day computing and while there is a shift, it's much more gradual than people in the web business seem to assume.
Amusingly, this phenomenon is not all that different from what folks working in the Linux desktop have been assuming since I got into that some 8 years ago: that this is the year of the Linux desktop. It's about to tip any day now...
Installing software through Synaptic is also awesome. This is one place where Linux now actually excels over Windows. Of course, I haven't actually needed to install anything that's not in synaptic yet.
Compiling on your own does not need more than calling configure and make in most cases, though.
There seems to be a certain fervor and excitement about "web 2.0" that people seem to get carried away in forecasting its implications.
For me this is kind of amusing, since I've been tracking networking stuff through a couple decades of "thin client" fads. "The network is the computer" is hardly a new idea. :-)
Usually when I want to be really productive on my computer, the first thing I do is unplug the DSL router. :-)
When I worked at a company doing enterprise financial software, I got the distinct impression that it was virtually impossible to sell a new desktop app. Our customers wanted everything to be web-based. I was hired as a desktop app developer and got switched over to web development after 8 months because all our new products were web-based.
I suspect that we'll see something similar to what happened with PCs and mainframes. The PC didn't kill the mainframe - all the old apps that used to run on mainframes still ran on mainframes. However, all new software, the category-killers that created new markets, were all developed on the PC. Mainframes stuck around for years before finally being killed by Y2K and web-based intranet apps, and some are still working.
Similarly, I think any attempt to displace office suites and such on the web is a losing battle. PC-based apps are "good enough" for what they're used for. But virtually all new killer apps, the ones with exciting market opportunities, will be on the web. Or they'll be web/desktop hybrids like DropBox, RescueTime, or BitTorrent, in cases where the app needs some local data that the browser can't provide.
Then PC apps will finally be killed by whatever new thick client ends up replacing the web, but we've got a while (maybe 10-20 years) before that happens.
I think that there is indeed a pendulum effect of over-reaction from one mainstream mindset to the other. But one things is for sure, no company in the past was able to predict what the future would bring - if they did they would have switched their ways. I think the sad fact is that these changes in mainstream mindset are very fluid and hard to predict and survival of the fittest company/solution is very much a game of chance.
This might be a reason for the longevity of larger companies like GE that can afford to have many bets on the table.
Write once, bill forever...
Is that literally true? (I've done it - but not for a while... maybe I should start doing it again)
I think it's a solid article.
Chrome isn't much faster than the others.
1. It has a fast Javascript VM, that converts Javascript into native code, cutting through lots of layers.
2. Each Javascript app (i.e a tab) runs in its own process, which the browser manages. So effectively Chrome is the OS layer as far as your JS apps is concerned.
3. The browser provides a nice control panel for managing those tasks and provides stats about its usage - again tradtionally what you wanted from an OS.
4. Chrome is not yet cross-platform, but we can expect it to be cross platform in due course. It is open source with a BSD license, so I am guessing lots of people have already started compiling it to every platform on earth. Expect unofficial distros soon.
5. Layering Chrome on top of a very stripped down Linux or BSD kernel, letting Chrome do all the GUI work is possible. Chrome does not need MFC, it is layered directly on top of a lower level graphics library (Win32). The calls Chrome needs could be done on top of BSD fairly easily. In fact, that is how Chrome (or Firefox for that matter) is really cross-platform - they come with their own widget sets (i.e MFC equivalent) rather than relying on the specific platform's widget set. Incidentally, Java does the exact same thing.
6. OEMs could come up with a 20-30 MB distribution of Chrome, with everything included (kernel, libraries, JS, Flash etc) and bundle it as a web top.
So, yes, Chrome is an alternative to traditional operating systems. The fact that it would include a stripped down BSD kernel doesn't count: from the application perspective Chrome is the OS.
Snark is all fine and dandy, but occasionally exercising the brain cells a little bit keeps them in good working order.
I think most of this 'WebOS' bullshit was kicked off by web-dilettante Jason Kottke, and it's even more ridiculous this time around, because Chrome is the least OS-like modern web browser yet made (and Firefox would be the most OS-like by far).
Chrome is not trying to be the operating system, it's trying to get out of its way. By using a shared-nothing separate process for each tab and plugin, it's letting the Kernel and libc do the job they were designed to do.
Most modern browsers (especially FF3) are trying to do an operating system's job — scheduling logically independent processes, micro-managing memory allocations, mapping virtual memory, providing an internal windowing system, providing an internal GUI scripting system. The whole point of an 'operating system' is to present a lot of layers.
Chrome does none of these things. It parries them off to the real operating system, where they belong — instead of adding another five nested layers on top of the pile of indirection.
"Web content has evolved to contain significant amounts of active code that run within the browser, making many web sites more like applications than documents. This evolution has changed the role of the browser into an operating system rather than a simple document renderer. Unlike current browsers, Chromium is built like an operating system to run these applications in a safe and robust way, using multiple OS processes to isolate web sites from each other and from the browser itself."
Chrome acts more like an OS, in part by delegating many tasks to the OS itself. Firefox does more of what an OS needs to do, because it does all the work of handling those tasks in a simplified way itself, rather than delegating.
Chrome is basically a launcher for web-based programs so it is more like a alternative to traditional shells.
Chrome isn't going to be an OS; but it might be a desktop environment. Which, to the casual user, is the same thing.
And frankly, they should've gone for the more DOM-like X3D.
I think we will see more machines that go that way and just have a bare bones linux o/s with chrome/firefox on top of it.
Sure, desktop software will always be around, for techies and hardcore gamers, but for the average non-tech user, they don't really need desktop software, and webapps are more natural and useful for them. (Tons of advantages to them).
I think some people are underestimating just how much google can throw at chrome in terms of marketing. They already have a link on google.com, and there's a ton of other ways they can promote it.
I think "Windows killer" is unwarranted, but it'll most likely make windows even less relevant than it is now to most people.
To clarify, I'll put another app's name in the same percentage.
There was a time when 73% of Americans had never even heard of Youtube.
As long as more than 73% of Americans have heard of Youtube this statement is quite likely true.
While Youtube clearly had a wonderful growth curve, both are horribly useless statements. Just as the knowledge of Youtube was low until it became high, knowledge of Google Docs will be low until it becomes high. Or it could stay low forever. But the current percentage/growth rate doesn't actually mean anything.
CHROME IS A BROWSER. http://xkcd.com/198/
I think it's safe to say that applications written in dynamic languages (like Javascript) that communicate with the Internet regularly are going to become more common. And a lot of these apps are going to run in something like Chrome or XULRunner.
A "desktop app" is a pretty simple distinction. You go to your "desktop" and load the app. From there, the app can read/write the file system, talk to the Internet, read the keyboard and mouse, communicate with special hardware devices, etc. Web apps are going to be very much like this very soon. And then there will be no difference between a web app and a desktop app.
So why choose to write a "web app" in that case? What distinguishes the two - what is the defining characteristic of a web app? (One comes on a CD, one is downloaded - no) (One is written in C++, one is written in a vm-hosted language - no).
Is it just that you use HTML/JS to write the app?
Even IMAP email clients I suppose.
So is a web app "something which keeps primary data on a server, and uses the HTTP protocol to read+write it"?
Things like the Java VM are a real layer, but things like MFC (which chrome does not use, it uses WTL) do not really slow things down or act as a real layer. They compile down to the same code as if you were to do this by yourself.
And anyways, what's the point? We should stop writing web apps?
I can see some kind of apps requiring to live "in the cloud" but I don't think desktop apps need to live there.
I thought we already had a web version of the word - "web portal"
Google as far as I can tell is already essentially a "web OS" (I think they lost their rights to call themselves a just a search engine a long time ago) and Chrome is just Google's attempt to integrate their "web OS" more readily with your computer/device.
I needed to print 300 address labels last night. I tried outputting HTML in a table (evil), then I tried reportlab (more evil).
I ended up outputting them as csv and importing them into Excel and doing a mail-merge with Word. Word even shipped with a template for the exact avery labels that I bought.
Web word processors have a long way to go. I know Word is a kitchen sink, but it's a working kitchen sink.
I'm probably making a foolish assertion. Perhaps the future will be better or different but I don't trust any corporation enough to just hand them the everything over the network.
I hear a lot of talk about "cost" being an advantage but I don't quite see how "doing it over the network" is going to inherently going to bring costs down.
It's a simple matter of the economics of scale.
Let's assume it takes 1 IT person per small business and assume there are 1000 businesses. The cost of upgrading and maintaining all those systems is roughly 1000 salaries.
Now if you take those same 1000 businesses and provide them with SaaS solutions (assuming cost of software will remain consistent between the two platforms) and say that you have a decent sized team of 50 people, then assuming the salaries are consistent you're solution is much cheaper.
This is a very simplified way to put it, but should make it clear.
But what if they starting just charging me out the nose again?
Pages has been around for about as long as Google Docs, I believe, and it's a much better program. So, again, timing is nothing but an excuse.
I agree, Word is (arguably) Microsoft's premier product that they put out. Many people will say that Windows is, but I think Windows is their flagship product, people use it because they think they have too. People opt in for Word.
Anyway, when was the last time that Word was just a word processor? There are a lot of features in word that can be thought of to be excessive. I'd be curious to see what the actual numbers were on features and usage, as I have a sneaking suspicion that a large number of people who use word use it for simple document editing, saving, opening and printing.
Sites like Zoho currently do this, quite well actually, so I think it's a case of Zoho has to break through 25 years of branding more than anything else.
Zoho is the worst. It's ugly and unpleasant to use. Part of being a word processor is not a matter of features, it's a matter of appealing to users. I'd pick Notepad to Zoho. Anything that doesn't have that horrendous aesthetic.
Then, it's online and there's no good way to access it. I set it up to work with Prism, once upon a time, but Buzzword couldn't remember my password and I had to log in each time.
Formatting messes up when it's between any format and Flash. That was an annoyance.
Finally, getting a hard copy of your stuff if you've got a lot is tedious. Docs has a gadget for mass downloading. Buzzword can't be modified in that way.
The web is undeniably an application platform and in that capacity, it is improved significantly by Chrome.
The most successful web applications, social and communication apps, would likely have never existed on the desktop.
There is also a broad class of desktop apps that have no forseeable migration path to the web such as rich media editing (photo/audio/video/etc) and games.
Which apps will make the leap from desktop to web is a subject ripe for speculation, but it's not going to be all of them. Such hyperbolic revolutionary fantasies always go unfulfilled.
It's madness!
Microsoft.
So much so they freaked out and ruined netscape, tried to ruin Real Media, and tried to extend and extinquish Javascript and Java, and almost got their company broken up by the government they were so worried about it. And now its back, and looking like more of a threat than ever.