Hi Nathan,
On 9/16/10 7:38 PM, Nathan wrote:
Marcos Caceres wrote:
On 9/16/10 6:10 PM, Nathan wrote:
Marcos Caceres wrote:
As above. I thought that was what we (Web Apps WG - Widgets) have been
doing for the last 5 years?
Maybe I've missed part of the specifications - are you telling me that I
can package up an HTML,CSS,JS based application as per the widgets
specification, include a WARP, Digital Signature, set the view-mode to
windowed and that this will run as is, in the main browser context of
the main browser vendors (Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome, IE etc)?
Ah! ok. I get it now. No, that won't work right now (actually, that's
how we run them in our development environment for testing purposes :)
). But that is trivial and no one has really asked for that.
Good to know, and you can consider me as asking for it!
I'm still a bit lost as to what the use case is?
- standardized application packaging and deployment for the web
Technically, more or less done (widget family of specifications).
Unfortunately, we are yet to see any buy-in from the big browser
vendors... that's their choice, of course. The specs are more or less
done and there for them if/when they find they need them.
- 100% client side application that use the web as a data-tier
- universality
- (user) trust
I know you mean well, but these are not "use cases". These are goals or
aspirations - which I also believe in, to be sure. A use case is like "I
wanna do X, Y and Z... but I can't do that right now because ... so I
would need A, B, C..."
Can you rephrase what you can't do right now (apart from showing a
widget in a tab) as use case?
There are many applications that are currently stuck using a server
because there is no clear path to deploying 100% client side
applications, examples include micro-blogging clients, note/task-pads,
image editors, contact managers, cms/blogging software (think admin),
well, any application which doesn't natively need a server and where
client side persistence/caching more than suits, or where the
data/api(s) being used within the application are exposed via HTTP (that
covers almost every "web app" I can think of).
Some applications are happy to live on the server. Others can be written
as native apps. And then some can be written as W3C widgets, sure (also,
have you tried Opera Unite? it's a server in the browser and does all
the cool things you mentioned above - and uses widgets to do it!).
The problem is not a standards one, I think. It's a problem that you
think other browser vendors have not bought into the whole widgets
thing. Opera supports W3C widgets, as do many other browser vendors.
Maybe you should look a little beyond the big browser vendors to "the
long tail" - you will find many companies actually implementing W3C
widgets (did you know WinMobile 6.5, Blackberry, Samsung, Nokia, etc.
all do W3C widgets? that list is growing little by little every day).
That's pretty cool, I think!
Despite what you might think, getting only big browser vendors is not
always the aim of stuff that is done at the W3C. We make stuff for
everyone to use and innovate on. Who knows! maybe the next Big Company
will be built on W3C Widgets.
Many stick with design paradigms which don't suite (server reliance) and
others simply swap to building vendor specific browser extensions thus
loosing universality and all the benefits of standardized APIs and the
hard work that has gone in to all things webby.
Sure. That's their choice. But you can't build content that won't run
anywhere.
Everything is currently pointing at an exponential increase in 100%
client side applications, from all angles, we've got client side
persistence, html5, canvas, ecmascript, gpu acceleration, a vast "web of
data", cloud storage, positioning the web as the data tier, a plethora
of standardized and supported APIs + media types - every element.
Right. It's all looking pretty sweet... maybe we don't need them widgets
things after all...:)
The
missing bit to tie it all together is for somebody to simply say "here's
how you wrap it all up and deploy", and that work has been all but done
under the banner of the widgets specifications.
Opera supports W3C widgets: use that :) For Webkit and friends, they are
open source, maybe you can just hack the support and convince them to
make it a standard part of their platform. Other people have done this
(e.g., Widgeon runs on Mozilla's code, and there are lots of WebKit
implementations of widgets). You can also email Apple and Mozilla and
ask them to add support widgets if you think its important. I'd be
interested to hear what they say - I'm sure they would be receptive to
the idea.
I am quite sure, in fact completely convinced, that if you provide the
web community with a way to wrap up client side applications, many, many
will adopt and embrace. Everybody from RIA developers through to
extension developers and the vast array of js/html web developers in
between.
Well, we kinda did that (widget family of specs). We, the working group,
spent 5 years working our buts off on the widget specs... maybe you can
work out what we did wrong and why your prophecy above did not come to
be yet? I'm all ears.
To me at least, it seems that a great deal of work has gone in to making
it possible for us to create universal applications, and now I can make
an ECMAScript/DOM/CSS/HTML5 application that works on pretty much every
device via user agents (soon with gpu support). Every app developer I
know is looking for this, given the choice between only developing an
app to work on an iphone, or make an app that works in every browser and
on iphone/ipad,android etc then it'd be a no brainer in most cases (the
old realm of flash) - there's nothing to stop them making this leap now,
other than the one factor "how to wrap it up". Such a simple thing that
could easily drive a paradigm shift.
Well, there is also the reality that some companies don't want to have
universality because they want to control their markets. As long as they
are not a monopoly, there is nothing wrong with that: they make a good
chunk of money from doing so, which makes them happy. So, you will have
to take that up with them. They may come on-board if they see financial
benefit in supporting widgets. No one is obliged to implement a spec
just because the W3C makes is a Recommendation.... it is, after all,
just a "recommendation"... like if a friend recommends you buy
something, you don't always do it.
--
Marcos Caceres
Opera Software
