Quoting Nicolas Roard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Hi, > > Seeing the growth of web applications (if you want to see some cool > webapp for instance, have a look to the 7 minutes dabbledb demo at > http://dabbledb.com/utr/ ) and the omnipresence of the web into our > daily computer life, I'm wondering how a traditional desktop fits in, > and specially, what étoilé should do... > > After all, if more and more applications move on the web, with UI > improving a lot thanks to tricks like xmlrpc+javascript (we even start > to see "office"-like applications...), what's the point in working on > a "traditionnal" environment ?
"Traditional" environments have the advantage of being yours - you have full control of them, they use native solutions and are optimized for a specific purpose. > Well, first we need to define what's so nice about webapps :-) > -- they are OS independant and language independant Wrong, wrong, wrong. Though they are not OS dependant, they are browser dependant, which sort-of becomes the OS on which you run a webapp, because it provides a run-time environment, a library of functions and a user-interface. Also, they are not language independant - imagine I wanted to write an interactive webapp in something other than JavaScript/Java - I'm screwed, because no other scripting language has reached that penetration = we'd break the interoperatibility, which was the original goal we had with webapps, right? > -- they don't need to be installed Technically, they don't, at least not on your client machine, but they do have to be installed on the server anyways, so non-installation is just an illusion, because it's pushed far geographically far away from you, but not in the virtual internet-world. > -- they don't need backup, or update, everything is done without you > worrying about it > -- they are ubiquitous : no need to carry your laptop anymore to read > your mails... But you still need a compatible OS (i.e. web browser with all required features) and a computer anyway, so personally I'd opt for having my Etoile mini-desktop on an easy to carry PDA with all the files handy, instead of looking for compatible, non-IE5 internet cafes who charge me for looking at _my_ stuff and doing anything. > Now, what's bad about webapps ? well... a lot.. :-) > -- they are slow Write that in caps. > -- they are inconsistent Oops, where did our language-independency go? It's like Java - sure, it's bytecode compatible, but try to run a Java game on all the Java phones today, and you'll be lucky to get it working on a fraction of them. > -- they are not integrated with your normal environment Agree. > -- the web is not meant to do that :-) -- and that's why it's so > gruesome to code webapps (but with things like seaside... that's > doable without that much efforts) and to work with them as a user > sometimes (high latency, etc) The web was ment to show simple interconnected pages with a few different fonts a colors. This is where it started: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldWideWeb and that's also where it was supposed to end. > Yet, it's obvious that webapps won't go anywhere, they are here to > stay. Mostly because they are so convenient for programmers/companies, > even if a bit painful to write (no deployment problems, etc), and > convenient as well for users. So everybody will accept some pain > waiting for a good enough webapp (think, gmail.. honestly I'm not even > using my local mail client anymore, simply because, moving from > home/lab/friends/trainstations, anyway i'll be able to access my > mail.. and apparently I'm not the only one in that case ^_^) > > So what do we want to do for Étoilé, if webapps are so convenient and > will take the world ? > > Well, as I said above, webapps aren't /that/ great as soon as you want > a fast interaction (no way to have a photoshop-like online... unless > all the pictures are also online, which after all isn't a completely > far-fetched possibility...), or low latency, or lots of datas needed > to be exchanged, or make different (web-)applications interact > together. So a "standard" environment has still a lot of things to do > :-) where it's much better than would be a complete "web environment" > consisting uniquely of webapps. [ although people used to the low > interaction in such environment as windows could still be sold to this > idea --- google OS, here you are ! ... ] Oh God, kill me before this happens... > ehem. > > So I still think that a pure client environment like Étoilé has more > than its place. But. We can see from the list above that we should > certainly try to push in Étoilé some of the good things that a web > environment provide: > -- we should simplify installation / update (like the rss update scheme...) Yep, this falls on our head. > -- we should have an easy, desktop-wide mechanism to do > backup/synchronization of your data and configuration > -- which means it should be easy to "share" a desktop among different > computers. Nope, this is already handled. This mail I'm writing right now is from a machine which sits a few hundred meters away from me, running Debian GNU/Linux and a self-confined desktop through inside a VNCserver. I'm connecting to it from anywhere I want (even my home, which is over 10km away, but if I wanted, anywhere in the world), and right now I'm sitting at a Windows machine in my school. Also, the connection is forwarded through an SSH encrypted tunnel, so there's no way somebody can take a peek at my VNC desktop. My work is stored and executed on the powerful server and available to me from anywhere I want. In other words, except for sound-integration (which is just a matter of implementing some better network-transparent VNC-like system), I have all the benefits that webapps could ever offer me, but it's: - faster - more interoperable - easily customizable - faaaar more extensible > -- we should facilitate as much as possible data exports to standard > formats such as ical, vcards, etc. with an easy way of publishing > things on the web That's a matter of writing apps, but yes, it's our responsibility. > eg, the general rule should be to not tied users to étoilé, but to the > contrary, allow a maximum sharing. On the other hand, we certainly > wants things to be _better_ if using étoilé than something else ;-) > > The other main idea is that I think the web should be integrated much > more than it is into étoilé. What I mean is that it should be possible > to consider "web apps" as.. applications; pages as documents, etc. > > For instance, we should have something like a "transform this page > into an application" menu in a browser (ok, we need a browser first > ^_^) that would create an application bundle containing the url, plus > cookies, passwords, cache, etc. And you could carry that "application" > anywhere. And double-clicking that app would simply start the page > into a simplified browser window showing just the page. > > Another thing would be to have some kind of framework able to easily > parse webpages so we could create applications that would integrate > easily with websites (eg, a flickr client app, etc) > > Obviously and as usual lately, I'm not really active code-wise (that > pesky phd to finish and plain old procrastination), so I'm not sure > when I'll work on that kind of stuff, but I wanted to write a mail > trying to detail a bit my ideas and to gather people comments about > them... Do you think it would be a good goal for étoilé ? if so, do > you have specific ideas on how to actually implement it ? or other > related ideas ? > > Thanks ;-) > > -- > Nicolas Roard > "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly > by." -- Douglas Adams We already have all the tools to beat the heck out of webapps, we just need to tell people to use them and not be scared. -- Saso _______________________________________________ Etoile-dev mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/etoile-dev
