On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 2:56 AM, Will Light <visi...@gmail.com> wrote: > i only take issue with the notion > that web-based applications will somehow "replace" desktop apps > entirely. > > for some use cases, sure...i mean, if somebody only uses facebook and > gmail on their netbook, then yeah, why the hell do they have more than > a web browser installed? but the notion of a browser-based terminal > for a local machine just seems ridiculous...and that's a mild example! > a browser-based music sequencer or video editor, for example, is so > far off that it's just impractical.
Weeeeeelllll... It's difficult to discern what will take-off in the future either technologically or sociologically. But one of the key use cases that I think might work with the web are those which are BOTH primarily data-based tasks (rather than getting your computer to "do" something) and which you don't really do that often. This is because (a) there's a big class of data which, with appropriate security safeguards, you're happy to be on someone else's server. For example, I'm happy to have my home photos stored in the cloud because in the worst case they're just a bit naff but having someone else take care of making reliable backups works for me. (b) for occasional applications I really prefer not to install the application on my PC (if nothing else, from the "minimal attack surface" security viewpont). Ironically, I can't imagine why anyone would want to use a web-based word-processor because it's something that you use so frequently that having a local version seems better for all sorts of reasons; likewise a browser-based terminal doesn't seem to make sense because if you use one at all you use it all the time. But I can absolutely imagine using a _performant_ web-based music sequencer or video editor just because I'd only use them once a year at most. (A professional musician would get more benefit from a locally installed app, but for a dilettante like me a _performant_ web-based application would be great.) Time will tell if Google's Native Client technology combined with intelligent caching will make actually having web-based music sequencers and video editors feasible in the near future. I've actually spent a bit of time thinking about this, precisely because applications in my field tend to suffer from issue b: with conventional installed software you have to be pretty sure you want to use the application to install it (particularly since I generally worry the uninstall won't actually remove all the crap it installed or will remove stuff shared with other programs) whilst with a web application you can try it and if even if it's behaves heinously or isn't useful, the only thing you need to do is not visit that site again. In this respect I think that HALF of "Google's Chrome OS" program is a good idea for users: making effective web applications available is a brilliant thing; it's the "web-applications will be the only applications available on Chrome OS" that I'm not sure about. -- cheers, dave tweed__________________________ computer vision reasearcher: david.tw...@gmail.com "while having code so boring anyone can maintain it, use Python." -- attempted insult seen on slashdot
