Posts Tagged oss

Have Browser – Will Travel

May 22, 2008 at 2:36 am · Filed under oss ·Tagged , , , ,

These days I’m mostly a Java guy, but for a number of years now, I’ve been convinced the future of development is the browser.

Yup, I put my money on Javascript.

But… I also put a little bit of cash down on SWF. Once I found I could develop for it under Linux thanks to mtasc and later Haxe.

IMO, here are the rules:

  1. you have to be able to develop for it under Linux
  2. it has to run in the browser
  3. it has to be completely free (as in beer, as in cash)

Some people won’t like these rules and will want to write in ActiveX or some other proprietary crap, sorry, you can’t exclude developers. Every developer you turn away (Qualcomm, I am talking about your crappy BREW), is going to try and destroy you. Oh, maybe not directly, but we will seek out a platform where we can produce software, and that platform will kick their platform right square in the sitting down parts.

Other people will say that you will alway have to have a server for your clients. P2P shows that is just wrong. It was a better network model back in the day, until scaling squashed it and now bittorrent shows how it will scale. The right answer to where you persist your data is everywhere.

What about mobile devices? They will run HTML 5.0 browsers. They may also run flash. I don’t know why they won’t run Java. I really don’t. “My applet? Why hast thou forsaken me?”

What about OpenGL and DirectX? Too easy: canvas.getContext(“3d”);

But IE doesn’t support the canvas element you say! That is why IE must be destroyed. Safari, I’m putting you on notice. I don’t like hearing you not supporting Firefox API’s.

Cross-browser scripting needs to end now.

Today.

Refuse to support anything but Firefox.

Don’t think

  1. it is an accident you can’t write BREW applications for you Verizon phone
  2. Microsoft isn’t the reason the canvas tag isn’t used everywhere
  3. Apple doesn’t want to be Microsoft
  4. IBM loves Linux

Do think:

  1. major technology companies are doing everything they can to keep developers in check
  2. we will overcome
  3. OSS all the time
  4. you sell software, not code

Javascript or Haxe? The good news is we don’t really have to choose.

😀

---------------------
IE must be destroyed.

Comments (1)