On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 1:16 PM, Kim Bieler <kimbie...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I hope this isn't a dumb question, but I've been thinking about how > much duplication there is between the OS and the browser -- each has > its own navigation, its own file structure, its own applications and > plug-ins, and all that real-estate-hogging chrome! > ---- Andrei made most of the important technical distinctions--you still need an OS to operate the hardware that the browser runs on. It's not terribly important, but it might be helpful to keep in mind that what I think most people think of as OS sort of includes three main things: *execution environment* for *applications* and their *data*. And actually, I'd guess most don't even think about the execution environment per se beyond "the thing that I use to access my apps/data." For a personal computer, these three live on the local hardware more or less permanently. For what folks think of as "browser," only the execution environment is permanently on the local hardware (on top of the OS); the applications and data live in the cloud. They might cache apps/data locally temporarily, but it's not as permanent as local apps. Here's another twist. I would suggest that Flash and Silverlight are actually "browsers" themselves. That they plug in to existing browsers is more of a delivery mechanism than anything else. They provide their own, richer and more reliable execution environment, and Silverlight also has it's own, richer local app and data storage/cache (don't know the details of Flash myself). AIR and Silverlight "out of browser" highlight this fact even more. So it's not so much "browser" per se that matters as having a lightweight execution environment that can provide you access to rich, Web-based apps. Netbooks and other devices basically eschew local app and data storage and constrain the execution environment to browser-based stuff. "Browsers" also provide another important aspect--security. They typically provide what we call a "sandbox" for these Web-based apps to play in, keeping them from mucking up your local device/OS (at least that's the idea). The practical implications of this are that it is not just performance that means you sometimes need to go local but also for access to other OS services (usually connections to devices like cameras, scanners, printers, etc.) that are not available in the sandbox. Anyways, I'm sure that's more than you wanted to know. I'll shut up now. -a ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
