A Webkit-based Platform?

[clevin]

Not only can, but will. It may take them some time, though recall they're doing this for free, but the capabilities of these web apps can certainly approach and exceed the capabilities of the programs you mentioned (with the possible exception of the iLife integration of iWork).

Oh, and try not being so rude next time.

jW

well, if you can provide any reliable links for your statements, that would be something worth discussion. Confidence is good, be better has fact back it up.

is this rude?

If you're strictly looking at feature comparison, then no one would use anything but MS office. It by far has the most features. In real use how of those features are actually used though? I think we're coming quickly to a point in time where people will ask "how much more do I need in a word processor or home use spreadsheet?" Do the Google apps do everything that MS does? No, but they don't need to. The Google apps meet a lot of the common demands and since they are server based the user gets an automatic back up to boot.

Google has only scratched the surface with what's possible with standard ECMA script and a browser. Every computer, cell phone, internet device, etc... has a web browser. The browser is the ubiquitous platform and I personally don't see that changing anytime soon. I'm expecting to see more and more web applications replace desktop applications in the future.

I guess I don't have a problem with this definition "platform", i was simply saying its limited.

And may I add, this is nothing new.

 

[Niiro13]

So this is kinda like Jiggy?

 

[eastcoastsurfer]

well, if you can provide any reliable links for your statements, that would be something worth discussion. Confidence is good, be better has fact back it up.

is this rude?

I guess I don't have a problem with this definition "platform", i was simply saying its limited.

And may I add, this is nothing new.

Facts sound good. Given the web platform - this includes:

• Standards compliant browser
• AJAX (ecma script, web services, css, dom, etc..)
• Google Gears (which allows apps to run local w/o an internet connection)

explain what its limitations are. What common productivity apps can I program on a desktop that I can't program on in the above platform?

 

[clevin]

So this is kinda like Jiggy?

yeah. more or less

Facts sound good. Given the web platform - this includes:

• Standards compliant browser
• AJAX (ecma script, web services, css, dom, etc..)
• Google Gears (which allows apps to run local w/o an internet connection)

explain what its limitations are. What common productivity apps can I program on a desktop that I can't program on in the above platform?

I guess depends on what you think a common productivity apps are,
excel plot is a common procedure to me,
RPG games are important to me too, managing local files are important too,
I also need to syncing my palm smartphone,
I need to do quicksilver or spotlight search lots of times everyday,
I need to chat with my dad through video conference of skype,
I need to export my ai files to pdf,
I need to write papers that in right format so i can submit for publishing.
I also need to be able to remotely print my stuff to an vista desktop.
I sometimes need to defrag the HDD

PS. this remind me another limitation of web app, not only It can't do most things, the things it can do, are quite slow, the more complicated, the slower, when i can get a free native app that runs much faster, where is the value of the web-ones?

 

[BenDalton]

There's nothing that stops a JIT compiler being used for ES3 (ECMAScript). ES4 does nothing to make a JIT compiler any more possible (partly because it claims to be compatible with ES3 in ES3 compatibility mode). At the moment, SquirrelFish (the ES interpreter in WebKit trunk) is quicker than Tamarin: JIT compilation isn't everything. The difference between modern JIT compilers and modern interpreters isn't much.

While I am certainly not an expert, I did hear a Mozilla engineer compare the current interpreters to the expected performance in Tamarin and they are optimistic that JIT will provide significant speed enhancements. It was actually a really informative podcast: http://ajaxian.com/archives/audible-ajax-episode-20-project-tamarin

The real issue with JIT compilation is using strongly typed variables which most JavaScript developers don't do at the moment. While they are working on some techniques to use JIT compilation with non-typed variables, there are some inherent limitations to that approach.

However your comment about SquirrelFish is very interesting, I did some searching and came across an interesting and highly technical article about it: http://blog.mozilla.com/dmandelin/2008/06/03/squirrelfish/

One of the comments, veracity unknown, does make me very curious about what features might be missing from SquirrelFish that could give Tamarin the edge in the long run:

wonderer - The reason Mozilla are still developing their own JS engine is simple - Mozilla’s JS engine supports a lot of stuff that Safari’s does not. Type annotations, for example, or all kinds of other ECMAScript 3 and 4 features. The entire UI of Firefox is written using JavaScript, and it makes heavy use of all those features that would be missing with Safari’s JS engine.

Interesting interesting interesting....

 

[clevin]

However your comment about SquirrelFish is very interesting, I did some searching and came across an interesting and highly technical article about it: http://blog.mozilla.com/dmandelin/2008/06/03/squirrelfish/

One of the comments, veracity unknown, does make me very curious about what features might be missing from SquirrelFish that could give Tamarin the edge in the long run:

Interesting interesting interesting....

i know nobody mentioned it, but i may well just add here. since my firefox fanboyism is on display again.

Tamarin is still very new, its not that fair to compare the speed right now. Tamarin, in reality, is even slower than spidermonkey 1.9 currently. I can't image that being the case in its final form. While SquirrelFish, altho just announced recently, has been in active development for a while, and currently its only 1.4 faster than spidermonkey 1.9.

 

[pierik]

Intranet apps!

I don't think this kind of framework is meant to replace either full-blown apps or normal web usage. This would rather be a perfect way for developing very specialized apps internally in companies. Take for example sales database interfaces, bank apps, reimbursement systems. Pretty much all systems that today are using IE6 with Active-x. With webkit you could replace them without having to rely on a certain vendor since everything in the structure is open source. You can use it on all major platforms and still get a very nice and consistent app which can do quite lot of the heavy lifting. Another benefit with this method is that you don't need to have web browsers accessible on the terminals where your apps are installed. Development would also be cheaper if you have in-house competence for web development, something I would believe is much more common than old fashioned programmers

This is a quite limited focus group, but with huge potentials.

 

[peterbak]

they are after the market(share)?

Short guess: Apple is betting that a "platform" that is more closely integrated with OS brings (or will bring) more benefits in the long term than a standalone browser. But being Apple, they are not gonna use a technology that is controlled by a competitor. Their culture of doing everything in-house shines thru.


More detailed guess:

1. Sophisticated web applications are showing up. If Google Docs becomes powerful and usable enough, why not try to blur the line even further and install it directly on user's desktop? Same for MobileMe. How sophisticated should a "web page" be before you will call it "an application"? Likewise, how many "native" applications have you seen that don't even deserve being written in Objective-C/C/C++ etc.

2. Architecture concerns. Once your web application is able to save data locally, where are you going to store it? Logical place would be to put it where the app actually lives (since all apps in OS X are just fancy folders anyway). That's the paradigm that OS X has been following from the beginning. Same could apply to security concerns. What if I want to change my dock icon if there are unread messages in Google Mail? How about sending Growl notifications when somebody posts something in Twitter? This looks more and more like an application and not a simple web page that can just sit in one of those browser windows.

3. Developers. Many people out there already know JS/CSS/etc. Why not target them directly and let them create something that behaves like a native app?

4. No Adobe. I'm on a limb here, but... Apple's iron grip of control over everything they do pretty much rules out adopting Flash - Adobe has too much say in what happens. Same for Java. Like with everything else, Apple said "we can do this better, lets start from neutral territory, like JavaScript/CSS". They did it with WebKit/KHTML, Darwin/NEXTSTEP/BSD.


Not arguing for or against this approach, just trying to understand what Apple is thinking here.

 

[knightlie]

Jesus, did you see google calendar? google doc? yahoo mail? AOL mail?

You call that desktop quality apps?

I call them "perfectly capable of what's required of them." They aren't meant to replace desktop apps in their entirety, but to make the basic features available over the web, wherever you are (unless your dumbass employer has blocked the site, as mine does).

Do you use EVERY feature of Word? Excel? Outlook? Google Calendar in particular is very good, and more approachable than the bloated feature-fest that is Outlook. Like many other people I just want to make appointments and send emails - Google does that flawlessly.

If you think web apps should emulate desktop apps feature-for-feature, prepare for long-term disappointment, as you're not being realistic.

 

[gwangung]

well, my friend, do you really believe google docs can do nearly as much as M$ office, or apple iworks, or openoffice?

At least one, in-production, <A HREF="http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2008/05/leverage-week-7-questions.html"> TV series </A> seems to think so.

 

[clevin]

I call them "perfectly capable of what's required of them." They aren't meant to replace desktop apps in their entirety, but to make the basic features available over the web, wherever you are (unless your dumbass employer has blocked the site, as mine does).

Do you use EVERY feature of Word? Excel? Outlook? Google Calendar in particular is very good, and more approachable than the bloated feature-fest that is Outlook. Like many other people I just want to make appointments and send emails - Google does that flawlessly.

If you think web apps should emulate desktop apps feature-for-feature, prepare for long-term disappointment, as you're not being realistic.

well, I actually agree with you on every points you made, which was my original points.

web-app is limited.

limited in functions.
limited in performance.

Its a fine addition for many people, but its no revolution as someone tried to make it to be.

 

[serralves]

Essence has a "c" in it.

 

[monkeyrun]

Offline web app could be a big part of the future.

Notice you could run Google doc offline also?

No it's not as powerful as MS Office, but for me it's quite enough already.
Also it has a nice online backup of my documents.

 

[Ibjr]

amazing, you call this web-app (which is a direct copy of prism from mozilla lab) innovation?

mac users need to learn more facts first.

How about you need to learn the facts first? They took it from http://fluidapp.com came out within months of Prisim and MailPlane (with some mods) was out even earlier.

I'll wait for you to apologize.

 

[clevin]

How about you need to learn the facts first? They took it from http://fluidapp.com came out within months of Prisim and MailPlane (with some mods) was out even earlier.

I'll wait for you to apologize.

haha, Im almost speechless. you apparent doesn't even know fluid app developers thanked Mozilla prism for inspiration on their website....
http://fluidapp.com/about/

Fluid was originally inspired by Mozilla Prism, Adobe Air, Bubbles, and Flock.

And be noticed flock is based on gecko as well.

Talk about facts, amazing you guys...

And tell me again, how did apple make mozilla team shameful on this (as the original quotation to which my response was targeted)?

Is making honest discussion so difficult for some people?

 

[elppa]

i've been impressed as hell with the advances of the webkit team. they make mozilla look like the IE team (e.g. lots of excuses, slipping schedules, slow uptake on new technology).

amazing, you call this web-app (which is a direct copy of prism from mozilla lab) innovation?

mac users need to learn more facts first.

Could the original poster maybe, just maybe not be referring to the Safari Web Application feature when they mentioned “the advances of the webkit team”.

You see this is a Safari feature (a browser) and not a Webkit feature (a rendering engine).

They could be talking about CSS 3 support, HTML 5 support, javascript interpreter performance, local database storage and ACID 3 test compliance (albeit vivaciously disputed by the Gecko team. And yourself on more than one occassion.) Some see Webkit pushing forwards with standards compliance, innovation and sour grapes on behalf of the Gecko team. Others interpret it all differently… Let's not cover old ground. It's not directly relevant to this thread.

And tell me again, how did apple make mozilla team shameful on this (as the original quotation to which my response was targeted)?

The original poster said “The Webkit Team”. They said nothing about Apple. Read it again.

We've been over this before. Webkit is an open source project with many contributors outside of Apple. Whilst it is true Apple coined the name, the Webkit community extends far beyond 1 infinite loop.

 

[clevin]

Could the original poster maybe, just maybe not be referring to the Safari Web Application feature when they mentioned “the advances of the webkit team”.

You see this is a Safari feature (a browser) and not a Webkit feature (a rendering engine).

They could be talking about CSS 3 support, HTML 5 support, javascript interpreter performance, local database storage and ACID 3 test compliance (albeit vivaciously disputed by the Gecko team).

of course he/she can, but you did noticed this thread title being "wekit based platform", and the whole OP was about web app making some idea "possible"?

However, Apple's inclusion of "Save as Web Application" feature in Safari 4 could alter this reality. By bundling Webkit into a standalone executable, developers could theoretically release downloadable Webkit-based applications for use on Windows XP, Tiger and Leopard.

Sure I might misunderstood his words, but with his unclear statement, combined with ongoing discussion, I think its reasonable for me to point out some facts.

PS. bonus for you

HTML 5 support comparison, remember HTML 5 just got its first draft 4 months ago.
CSS support comparison
DOM support comparison
ECMAscript support comparison
Graphic support comparison
XHTML support comparison

get more facts next time

The original poster said “The Webkit Team”. They said nothing about Apple. Read it again.

indeed, I mis-read it, then take a look above and read my bonus offers and understand that mozilla has no need to feel shame about anything

 

[ljocampo]

The point is small slim streamline

I think that desktop apps become bloated with features most users could care less about. E.G. I bought SuperDownload because it seemed speed up my downloads, but the company need to justify each new paid upgrade with more and more features to the point it no longer was faster to download and the app kept wanting to takeover my system. After SD 3 I stopped using it.

Streamlined apps are much better if they do 1 or 2 things. It doesn't matter to me if they're in a browser or widget. Using JS/HTML/CSS gives them flexibility to change UI skins and cross platform capability. To me that a better way to go for most app functions. It's not going to replace a full native app.

 

[gifford]

Java on the other hand is well defined. And it has a UI that works on all platforms and it is performant and it is available to many platforms too.

Java? Last time I heard that name mentioned I was drinking from a Soda Stream dancing to Mc Hammer.

 

[eastcoastsurfer]

yeah. more or less
I guess depends on what you think a common productivity apps are,
excel plot is a common procedure to me,
RPG games are important to me too, managing local files are important too,
I also need to syncing my palm smartphone,
I need to do quicksilver or spotlight search lots of times everyday,
I need to chat with my dad through video conference of skype,
I need to export my ai files to pdf,
I need to write papers that in right format so i can submit for publishing.
I also need to be able to remotely print my stuff to an vista desktop.
I sometimes need to defrag the HDD

PS. this remind me another limitation of web app, not only It can't do most things, the things it can do, are quite slow, the more complicated, the slower, when i can get a free native app that runs much faster, where is the value of the web-ones?

LOL, okay none of these are impossible in a web app environment and most are already done.

Excel stuff is probably the hardest. We all have our favorite excel function that doesn't exists elsewhere. Just because it doesn't exist doesn't mean it can't be done though. And when it comes to speed, imagine an online excel where all your calculations are done on a server farm like Amazons service they sell. By having your spreadsheets on their servers you could actually get *better* performance than your desktop. I actually already have proof of this case using pivot tables and MSSQL AS at work. Excel becomes a simple viewer while the rest of the work is done on the server. It's much much much faster than trying to deal with large pivot tables on the client.

RPG games...I can swear that I've played one in my browser before, but I can't think of it atm. Doesn't matter since much of the most important RPG data is already forced to be stored at the server to prevent hacking. Not a good example from your part.

Already JS versions of chat out there.

When it comes to syncing...isn't your palm internet enabled? Why can't it pull down your contacts from Google? Isn't MeMac or whatever going to do just that?

Google docs already exports to PDF (and Word, OO, RTF, etc...) when it comes to publishing if there is any special format you need, it's just writing a filter to do it. There is nothing inherent keeping a web app from exporting to anything.

When it comes to searching or doing HD things like defrag, that's the beauty and the allure of web apps. You no longer have to worry about those things. When all your apps run from a server and all your files are on some other secure server who cares how you access them. At that point you could even get rid of what we consider today the computer and replace it with a dumb terminal.

You've provide no example of an app that can't be or already isn't done in an online web environment. The best example I could come up with be complex graphical games, but even Safari is trying to solve that now. Look up the work Linden labs is doing on Webkit and how they are embedding the OpenGL api into Webkit.

 

[NAG]

This is just another geek religious war. Firefox/Webkit, Cloud computing/Personal computing, etc... They've turned technology into a dogma and won't admit that different things are better in different areas.

 

[gifford]

well, my friend, do you really believe google docs can do nearly as much as M$ office, or apple iworks, or openoffice?

get real.

Your vision is astounding, I'm really impressed.
I'm a talent scout for Microsoft, and I see real potential in you for a position at Redmond. You could well be 'the one'...

 

[clevin]

Excel stuff is probably the hardest.

RPG games...I can swear that I've played one in my browser before

When it comes to syncing...isn't your palm internet enabled?

Google docs already exports to PDF (and Word, OO, RTF, etc...) when it comes to publishing if there is any special format you need, it's just writing a filter to do it.

When all your apps run from a server and all your files are on some other secure server who cares how you access them.

You've provide no example of an app that can't be or already isn't done in an online web environment.

I did, you refuse to admit it, "could be done" is a useless word since you don't even have an realistic proposal, just bold prediction won't cut it.

This is 2008, Im not playing 1994 games. Of course every game now involves good graphic card.

 

[Preclaro_tipo]

Troll

haha, Im almost speechless. you apparent doesn't even know fluid app developers thanked Mozilla prism for inspiration on their website....
http://fluidapp.com/about/



And be noticed flock is based on gecko as well.

Talk about facts, amazing you guys...

And tell me again, how did apple make mozilla team shameful on this (as the original quotation to which my response was targeted)?

Is making honest discussion so difficult for some people?

I'm afraid clevin is a good old fashion troll.

Don't feed the trolls.

 

[Jon the Heretic]

This is exciting stuff

Working on web apps for the past 10 years, I personally find this damn interesting stuff. Think of as AJAX evolving into a full featured environment, suitable for *some* (not all) desktop uses.

Web apps are becoming incredibly important from inside of large companies...because distributing software, maintaining client builds is *expensive*. With a Web app, however, you just need a Web browser and there is your application.

One problem with Web apps has been THEY SUCK! Seriously suck...but AJAX has *started* to change that. And opensource technologies like Dojo, OpenAJAX, and web widgets of all types is really transforming the little javascript language into a serious contender. Dashboard uses Widgets; Google Gadgets; and let's not forget the iPhone, where they are everywhere. Many iPhone users aren't even aware of what is a widget and what isn't.

But another problem with Web apps are they don't work disconnected well. There are hacks and so forth, but it is all a mess. Being able to work offline without being CONFUSED about it (a real challenge...which apps support it, which apps don't?) would be a significant benefit. If a web app could masquerade as a desktop app, that would make it very clear it worked offline, without losing any of the benefits of being a web app. After all, most web widgets already execute directly in the Web browser...you really don't need to be connected all of the time.

Platforms that make you go a with a specific vendor technology make me leary...not so hot on Flash for this reason. And I despise any and all plugins! Apple with Webkit has struck a great balance...build APIs on top of openly available technology. It strikes a chord for me. It has my attention. If it is as Open as Webkit, this could get very interesting thanks to its emergence as the Mobile browser tech of choice.

Back in the late 90s, I thought Java was the Big Cheese, but no more. Slow and not ready for primetime for many years, now you see it being used for inflexible server architectures. And unless you know what you are doing, it won't work with screenreaders. Yes, the blind use the web. Java has a role but I am finding AJAX far more useful than Java ever was for me, easier to include in existing web apps for major upgrades that cost peanuts, and when properly coded, can be accessible for the blind, like many Dojo widgets are. I don't see Doom4 written in it, or to encode a HD video, or write drivers for Firewire 3200, but what idiot thinks that way? Real desktop apps are here to stay, but the era of smart, offline-capable web apps is finally upon us, and can serve many useful purposes where productivity apps are concerned...and damn it has been a long wait.