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Yesterday, while looking over to the Google Gears (GG) stuff, I talked with Celso about this and that I was pretty excited with the possibilities it provides. He was not impressed and later he told us why. I'm going to pick on his arguments for a whil...
Friday, June 1. 2007 at 10:53 (Link) (Reply)
The first, regarding FF3's offline storage... You raised a very important issue on your 3rd point. Even when FF3 comes out with offline storage, launching an app that relies on that is like launching a XUL application. Heavy dependency on the browser brand... Isn't the new web all about compatibility? So like you said, for offline storage to become mainstream, everyone, and I mean everyone, should implement it in their browsers.
As for Google Gears... I'm still trying to understand the concept that we need such platforms like Apollo, Slingshot and now Gears.
The competition over at Digg, sponsored by Adobe trying to shove Apollo down our throats only proved what I already thought... most of those apps were possible inside a browser. And on top of that, to interact with the Digg API it needs to be online, so the offline argument isn't even valid there.
I guess Google is just taking its place in the offline webapps market, just in case. Weren't we/they all heading towards the online OS? Why did we/them turn around?
I'm with you.. I must be missing something here.
Friday, June 1. 2007 at 15:21 (Link) (Reply)
Friday, June 1. 2007 at 17:27 (Link) (Reply)
And then what? Should we port the apps meanwhile developed to the new standard? Something like porting an App from GGears -> FF3 Offline Storage -> (HTML5) Standard?
I haven't seen a strong example for why we need these things. Aren't there languages that were born for offline usage? C# has a lot of hooks for synchronization and stuff. How will these platforms meet up with Java's Security features? Until now, all I see are proof-of-concept projects. Cute, digg-able projects.
Zimbra? It's nice, but we've always had email clients...
Damn, I feel dumb for not getting it.
Friday, June 1. 2007 at 19:38 (Link) (Reply)
First of all Erik confirmed that he hopes Firefox, Opera, Safari and the W3C adopts Google's proposal. Which is odd because:
1. Google should have a strong position on Mozilla's priorities these days, the latest Firefox 2 versions already uses Google stuff for some of it's functionality, why don't they just ask for it ?
2. Have they totally ignored the fact the Mozilla was already working on a offline storage API ? Well my guess is that they must have discussed it, to say the least.
Regarding the W3C, I'd like to know how the Google's pretensions will fit with the current HTML5 draft proposals which include "Client-side database storage" too. I guess drafts have that name for a reason.
So the strategy is clear to me now: everyone wants offline storage, there's already a big mess with lots of available or ongoing proposals (which most of the developer community wasn't even aware), let us make a big statement, create lots of awareness, and present something better and just hope Microsoft gets enough pressure from the other browser vendors and from the developer's community (and W3C if we get lucky) and break like they did with XMLHttpRequest and IE7, and so IE8 will have GG's API or something close enough that some Prototype or YUI can abstract.
And considering Google's strength with the community at the present moment, I don't really think it's a bad strategy. It's probably a better one than the now obviously dead Firefox solo flight.
Regarding my friend Melo notes on my original questions I must say that generically I don't disagree with you. My original point was all about the hype GG created like as if the wheel has been invented, period.
I don't think getting to the point Flash is today will be so easy, flash is a different story at a different time and has been bundled with Windows and IE for ages, not comparable at all. Using GApps to push it makes sense and can work pretty well, but forget mass adoption using this path.
We agree on the rest
Friday, June 1. 2007 at 23:12 (Link) (Reply)
Firefox: "Hey guys, look at my roadmap and what I'll have in a couple of months!"
Google: "Bah. Move over, Beethoven. Too slow. It's my show, now."
Saturday, June 2. 2007 at 01:15 (Link) (Reply)
Monday, June 4. 2007 at 09:41 (Link) (Reply)
Monday, July 9. 2007 at 09:39 (Link) (Reply)