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posted by dennisn on November 23rd, 2011 at 1:15PM
Would you stop with the bullshit fictional narratives, and just stick to facts. I realize that you can force JS to do anything you want, if you devote enough time to it. You can even write an OS in PHP -- the question is, do you want to? Now, you've already made your case -- you /want/ the ease-of-use of one-click applications. You either don't see the value of community distributions and decentralized source code management, or feel that the convenience of a company telling you what you can do outweighs the benefits of decentralization. That's fair enough, but don't give me this bullshit that I don't see what it is. I know full well what it is, and to me, whatever gimmicks it has to offer FAR underweigh the benefits of "archaic code distribution".
(But, come on, for fuck's sake, is installing programs normally really such a pain in the ass for you? Is having your browser act as a package manager, with far less end-user-control, really so fucking revolutionary? Really?)
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posted by dsk on November 23rd, 2011 at 8:04PM
>Would you stop with the bullshit fictional narratives
It's not a narrative. It's a fact. I don't know if you completely lack imagination, simply dense, or stuck in 1998 where you had your golden age.
>You can even write an OS in PHP
Yes. And it would be an interesting exercise. And it would be completely useless. And you notice that it hasn't been done and nobody is pushing for it, or funding it, or excited by the prospect?
It's almost like you're proving my point.
>I know full well what it is
Clearly you don't, because you don't understand it.
>come on, for fuck's sake, is installing programs normally really such a pain in the ass for you
It's stuff like this that shows you don't really understand it. YOU tell me why. Try.
Tell me why it's better for you to host this blog as a web application that all of us can enter simply by typing in a url address, as opposed to you writing the whole thing in C and forcing all of us to install it so that we can read, post and comment via that app only?
Tell me why an IT administrator at a hospital, who manages 5000 workstations, would prefer that an application be browser based, as opposed to one that needs to be installed? Would he prefer to have his weekend free or oversee a security update rollout to 5000 users, and deal with dependency conflicts that may arise on 5% workstations?
Are you an imbecile?
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posted by dsk on November 23rd, 2011 at 8:29PM
Check out this gorgeous workflow.
Working on a paper with two other people.
Of course I want to use docs.google.com because it is a gorgeous document creator, browser based and let's me do really really cool stuff. Like what?
Well, as I'm writing it all out, I can share the document with two of my collaborators. I don't have to email them drafts. They don't need to install anything. They can use Linux, Windows, Mac, I don't care. They don't care.
As I'm editing, they can see exactly what I'm changing in real-time. They, themselves can edit the document with minimal contention ( as google docs is smart enough to manage all that ) and I can see their edits and their notes.
What if the internet goes down, or wifi isn't available? Good thing, google docs implements an html5 open standard called "Web Storage", which means my changes, in addition to being synced with the server, are synced to local store and if I choose, also my filesystem, so I can keep working on the file, and still have a local version available.
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posted by dennisn on November 23rd, 2011 at 8:40PM
Clearly you haven't done much writing in your life. Cool as all that crap sounds, it's pretty fucking useless IMHO. I sure as fuck wouldn't want you changing my shit as I'm writing.
Nevertheless, have you checked if a multi-user document editor/whiteboard already exists? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that many already do. And the only reason they're not popular is cuz they're kinda pointless. (But, slap JS into it, and BAM -- NEW SHINY THING THAT PROMISES TO FILL MY INNER VOID!)
SVN/git would be cool to do shared (writing, etc) projects with, too.
But hey, we're desperately trying to validate this new thing!!1! So forget all that old archaic dinosaur stuff! Let's invent a JS-wheel!
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posted by dennisn on November 23rd, 2011 at 8:26PM
Webpages were designed for blogs and information -- that is why browsers were written, in C, and people forced to install them. (Although NNTP is still great and going strong. I'm toying with the idea of switching this site to NNTP, since that's all it really is.) Nobody ever brought the value of webpages into dispute. Why are you using strawman arguments?
Your point about a 5000 clone mono-culture is valid, somewhat. If everyone just used the same software/hardware, the world would be so much simpler. I guess this is ultimately what JS wants to do -- have everyone doing and using the exact same thing. It will never work. Although, even that is not a great argument, since if you're managing 5000 workstations, they're probably all variants of just a couple prototype/master machines -- so you would easily test the few "master/test" machines, before deploying. (Not to mention the fact that there isn't much your hypothetical admin currently has to deploy via JS in the first place. A fucking email client? A Like button? A map? Anything else I missed?)
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posted by dsk on November 23rd, 2011 at 8:39PM
>Although, even that is not a great argument, since if you're managing 5000 workstations, they're probably all variants of just a couple prototype/master machines
No. Different departments have different upgrade paths. End-users may wish to access resources from outside of work. For example, they may choose to take a day off but still log in from the home machine to check on a resources. Or they may be on business in another country. Or maybe you may want to give guest privileges to a contractor whose only around for a few weeks or months, or guest privileges to a visiting client. Do you want the hassle of managing all those other workstation, when you could simply have them point their web-browser to a url containing your rich web app? Do you have to worry that they run the proper OS or force them to run one that is compatible with your application? Do you want to spend hours or days debugging an app to run on some exotic hardware when technology exists to you don't have to?
See how unimaginative you are? The kinds of problems a web solves? Should come as a shock to you.
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posted by dsk on November 23rd, 2011 at 8:34PM
>Webpages were designed for blogs and information
Very early versions of the web were designed to handle only simple marked up text. THAT WAS THE STARTING POINT, NOT THE END POINT.
>Nobody ever brought the value of webpages into dispute.
You did. You still do. Because you are a retard, who doesn't know he's a retard. *THIS* isn't a webpage as originally envisioned. It doesn't just serve lightly marked up text. It's a content management system that handles user input (files and text), centrally manages and stores it and returns it specifically formatted to users (formatting that is context sensitive, allowing it, for example to correctly display links to images as images and polls). You've already went beyond the confines of what "Webpages" were originally envisioned it to be.
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posted by dennisn on November 23rd, 2011 at 1:22PM
Thought Experiment: I can trivially modify my current OS to support one-click application installation and usage. I can tightly integrate every app together, have them automatically updated, etc. You can think of it as Ubuntu on steroids. The question is, do I want to? Do you?
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