Re: [WedTech] Fwd: 10 reasons the browser is becoming the universal OS ( - Software )

Posted by Owen Densmore on Nov 20, 2013; 5:27am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Fwd-10-reasons-the-browser-is-becoming-the-universal-OS-Software-tp7584335p7584337.html

Agreed.  Just messy enough to survive.  And evolve.

All the forever machines have been a surprise.  

Who'da thought 30 computer scientists could have meet for a month at NSF, come up with the internet protocol and still be here after *none* of the initial hardware atoms still participate, and *none* of the original code is in place.

Who'da thought Brendan Eich would present Scheme as the language for the Netscape internals, what we now call the DOM.  And be rejected .. go fetch another rock.  And in less than a week, he gives Scheme a pretty face .. i.e. "looks like a real language".  The rest is history.

Messy lives.  Good thing, considering my office!

   -- Owen

On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 9:43 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Owen -

I generally agree with the point you are making but always feel compelled to make the counter point that modern browsers are replacing the Window/Desktop manager more than the OS.  Yes, there is a sophisticated JS interpreter in them, but that is as deep as it really goes IMO.

With your background, you obviously appreciate that the current state of browsers is roughly what I think was conceived of when Sun invented the Network Extensible Window System (NEWS), only with JavaScript instead of PostScript.  I think NEWS would have been a better (technically) solution if it had been allowed to mature over another 20 years (as browsers have).

That said, I think it has *finally* come of age...  I was an early adopter/developer in the WWW space and saw the potential but was frustrated by the ragged pace of such popular movements and oddly competitive markets (remember when McNeally publicly buried the hatchet with Gates at JavaOne II I think... after deliberately crashing their servers publicly at JavaOne I ?).

"the browser" is a very sophisticated but still crufty IMO place to live.  

Following Winston Churchill's great quote: "the browser is the worst OS/Window/Desktop system around, except for all of the others".

- Steve

Slightly sophomoric, but interesting:

   http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=38FBC962-C6BF-964F-590BACFE526B0A98

The reasons:

Browser as ultimate OS reason No. 1: The rise of vast, rich Web applications

Browser as ultimate OS reason No. 2: Easy extensibility via plug-ins

Browser as ultimate OS reason No. 3: Its open source foundation

Browser as ultimate OS reason No. 4: Metaprogramming

Browser as ultimate OS reason No. 5: Multiplatform simplicity and mutability

Browser as ultimate OS reason No. 6: A clean abstraction layer

Browser as ultimate OS reason No. 7: Better sharing models for libraries

Browser as ultimate OS reason No. 8: Fertile, competitive marketplace

Browser as ultimate OS reason No. 9: SVG, canvas, vector graphics, great user interfaces

Browser as ultimate OS reason No. 10: Node.js

The article expands.  JSEverywhere has been in our minds for quite some time, but this is yet another articulation.

   -- Owen

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