[Sussex] Google Chrome...

[Geoffrey Teale]

On 2 Sep 2008, at 13:52, Vicky Lamburn wrote:

> Hiya,
>
> I'm not sure of rebuild of Firefox (read Gecko) but it's more of a
> re-work of WebKit/KHTML from what I have understood.
>

Before we see the code I don't think that's possible to say.   The  
google gears guys have said they owe a lot to firefox, I believe the  
WebKit rendering engine is in use though (which makes sense, the code  
is way nicer than gecko). They are also using a new Javascript engine  
(V8) which I don't believe is the same as the new, ultrafast  
javascript engine in the forthcoming Safari release.   Given the  
structure of the browsers concurrancy model is so different I don't  
believe it would be fair to say this is a rework of *any* existing  
browser.

> I think this is a good thing and I agree with the thinking behind as
> for some people computers become more of a thin client appliance.
> After all some people just browse the web, send e-mails and knock up a
> letter and view their photos. To that end a light OS with a optimised
> browser that becomes the application host to some extent makes a bit
> of sense.

The eee-pc and iPhone generation is upon us.  Funny enough, back  
around the turn of the century companies like Be Inc (in conjunction  
with Sony) ,  3Com and QNX were all convinced that web-appliances  
would be the hot item of the next few years.  They made products like  
eVilla and Audrey that had a lot of media attention but never showed  
up in any shops.  There was a lot of derision at the time, and a lot  
of companies went the way of the dodo, but here we are all these years  
later and finally an idea has it's time.

> What I don't see sense in per se is the need to ditch desktop
> applications altogether - that seems a bit silly, we have fast
> computers, that run apps fast and some companies see that replacing
> them with browser based versions which are inherrently slower and more
> limited. A bit of a back to square one scenario there. However, the
> web is a good window on the world for grid computing so who knows what
> will happen.
>

It actually makes a lot of sense in the corporate market - just like  
any other thin client technology it's generally easier for IT  
departments to manage these kinds of systems, and there is rarely a  
need to visit someone's desk.   Actually the tricky thing is trying to  
find a broadly compatible way of delivering rich functionality to  
peoples desks via a web browser.   I believe the only reason a lot of  
companies aren't just going proprietary to achieve this is because  
they  are sick of spending money on commodity machines.    There are  
of course others who will happily go proprietary.. ho hum.

A secondary point here is also about the difference between what  
people think is a good system and what actually is.   The more  
"powerful", "configurable" and flexible you make a system the less  
productive the average user is.   Office software is a key point.   
There are long standing studies that show that people are far more  
productive if you give them a plain text editor and plain text e-mail  
and you ban the use of word processors, spreadsheets and presentation  
software.

> Either way more competition is good.


Oh yes, and more sharing!

-- 
Geoffrey Teale
Software and Technology Consultant, München
tealeg at member.fsf.org