Posts by bojennett

Oh, gawd... another "the web will win" article?

Seriously? The web will win? How long have HTMLx (3/4/5) proponents been saying this? Give it up, man. There is no "one size fits all", no "write once, run everywhere". It doesn't work. Java was supposed to be the write once, run everywhere king... does that mean you can take an Android app and embed it on a web page? Of course not. Java on Android is no different from Microsoft's Visual C++ -> a syntax for a specific platform (just as Visual C++ is a syntax of C for programming on Windows).

Heck, there isn't even really "Java on Android" - there are Android apps that look great on some Android handsets, but you change the screen resolution and they look like crap. So, to make the Java look good, even within Android, there are a bunch of hooks, if/thens, screen formats to check. Really, not much different than your "#define" on C programs to run on different Linux/BSD/Unix workstations.

I'm supposed to get excited about HTML apps when one of the biggest "innovations" in the last couple of years is I can drag a document from my desktop into a Google Mail web page and it uploads? Really? Drag and drop in what, 2008/2009 when it's been on desktops since Mac OS in the early 80's (or Xerox PARC in the late 70's if you want to be technically accurate)?

The biggest argument that was keeping the web from "winning" previously is all the "momentum" that existed on desktop apps, and so it was just going to have to take time to get people to move. Then, bam, along comes these new mobile platforms with NO LEGACY whatsoever, and the mobile players were even touting web technologies (iOS apps originally were supposed to be HTML5, Palm was HTML5, Android was Java, which of course is a web tech), and yet, within a year, native apps sprung up and have dominated.

The web...will... not...win.... GIVE...IT...UP.... HTML5 is LaTeX (a presentation language) with massive hacks to provide UI elements. The fact that it works at all is amazing and a testament to the programming genius of a lot of people. But look, I can probably turn Microsoft Word into a first person shooter platform if I work real hard in Visual Basic for Applications and convince Microsoft to tweak the language... but that would be a gigantic waste of time.

It's because HTML sucks, dude

1) customers want apps that look good and are easy to use

2) developers will gravitate to the tools that provide that experience to customers with the least amount of effort.

HTML5 is an ungodly pain in the ass to code to. And takes many more lines of code to do something (say, add a nice fading shadow under an object) compared to an app language (in iOS, this is 3 lines of code (shadowColor, shadowOffset, and shadowRadius). And don't even get me started on how hard it is to do a dynamic, scrolling list/table view compared to a TableViewController in iOS.

Can I find and install a library in HTML5 that will allow me to do this? Yes. Why would I, that's more work!

I can't understand the whole fascination with HTML5. HTML is a "presentation" language. A language that had its roots in the text-oriented document creation languages like LaTeX. Over the years, it has had numerous amounts of crap glued onto it to make things interactive. I could make PostScript or LaTeX interactive, too, by glomming the same amount of junk onto it, but why in the world would I? Other than masochism?

If a language had existed that could provide the user experience that iOS or even Android's Java version does, I would have used it. But it doesn't. The learning curve to make HTML5 do what you want it to do is MUCH, MUCH, higher. And the benefits "it's portable" are lame. I can write an Android app and an iOS app - 2 independent apps - in the time it would take me to do a cross-platform HTML5 app. And each will look better than the HTML5 version. And my IP used to develop it would be private (unless I wanted to open it up).

You HTML5 people... you need to get over yourselves. The fact that you can make it work at all as an application framework is truly commendable. You've done the equivalent of bolting a jet engine onto a bicycle bike frame. The fact that the bike doesn't blow up is awesome - but that doesn't mean I want to ride it.

Mozilla is wrong, of course

Quote: "Jay Sullivan, Mozilla vice president of mobile, announcing the project in May 2010, singled out the Apple model as being opposed to what Mozilla has in mind. Developers want app ubiquity for their software, he said."

Jay, no they don't. Developers don't care about "ubiquity". They care about making money. If you build a platform that allows developers to make money, they will port their code to it. If a developer can make a billion dollars porting their code their code to the back of bubble gum wrappers, they'll do it. On the other hand, nobody will port their code to some "ubiquitous" platform if they can't make money.

Would it be "easier" if they could code once and run everywhere? Sure. Has that ever happened? No. HTML5 is the new Java - the latest fantasy in write-once, run everywhere.

There are probably 5 people in the world who care about this concept. And none of them are developers. The rest could care less. I mean, how many times has Tetris been recoded to run on different platforms? Has the fact that it had to be recoded been a "problem"? Of course not.

I also find this whole concept of ubiquity hilarious. If I build an app for a desktop that I want to be "native", I would build it for Windows, Mac, and Linux. If I build it in "HTML5", however, I have to test it against MORE things - Chrome, Safari, Mozilla, a couple of IE's, and probably Opera. None of which support all the HTML5 features, and won't for a long time (especially since HTML5 isn't a fixed target). It would actually be harder to build an HTML5 app without massive amounts of if-thens to deal with all the browser crap. Which is the same amount of work as building native apps for the desktop.

Now, here is Mozilla with their "app model". OK. Great. Chrome also has an "app model", which is different. How is this ubiquitous, exactly?

Stupid article

"Oooh, oooh, i got an idea for an article to generate web traffic!"

"What is it?"

"Say that a new interconnect has a back door to allow unfettered access"

"Hmmm.. how do you think it would work?"

"Well, I've not seen the technology, nor have any idea how it works, but why does that matter?"

"You're right! Post it!"

Seriously, what a stupid article. No facts, not even a supposition of facts. If TB is strictly a tunnel for PCI-Express and DP, as is currently indicated, then how in the world can you assume it introduces a new back door?

Do you people even do any work other than cleaning the cheetos dust off your fingers before typing?

Mis-understanding why Android is "winning"

I'm so tired of hearing how Android is taking over the world because it is "great" or something. Android is doing well for three reasons: 1-Apple redefined what a Smartphone is, (chocolate bar form factor, touch screen), 2-the existing "smartphones" (RIM, MS, Nokia) have not been able to migrate over there (MS maybe gets there with WP7), and 3-Apple has one phone model on one US carrier, so many people can't/won't get an iPhone.

Smartphones are the new "feature phone", as in, the new baseline for people. Everybody I know who is a non-techie got an Android phone *not* because they wanted an Android phone, but because their contract was up, they wanted something a little more flashy like all their iPhone friends, and the Android phone was the new free or seriously cheap phone they could get. Most of them don't know how to use any of the features, including the browser, (they didn't browse on their feature phone, so they aren't browsing on the new phone).

Many, in fact, thought they got an iPhone because it looked kind-a-like an iPhone.

This doesn't mean that Android is "bad" or anything. It just means you can't look at the number of installed Android phones, or the number of activations of Android phones, and draw *any* conclusion about Android as a platform. Nokia Symbian used to dominate (and still dominates in much of Europe), and that isn't really a platform. RIM still dominates in many businesses, but that doesn't make it a platform, either.

Android was dreamed up (as a startup) to replace Win Mobile, RIM, and (the older) Palm, and it has done quite well at that. Apps and heavy duty browsing are slap-dash add-ons for Google to respond to the iPhone, and even Google admits that they have a poor implementation for doing that.

Maybe this will finally expose MS for the fraud that they are

If you compare a PC to a tablet or phone, you find that problems such as: battery life on a PC sucks, they run too hot, and they take forever to sleep and resume.

People have always seemed to assume that this is a fault of both MS and Intel.

Putting Win8 on ARM will show that, no, it is all the fault of MS.

1) It takes forever to sleep and resume because MS' algorithms for entering sleep and wake are pathetic. Windows doesn't have a "just stop" equivalent - they do all this wind up and tear down. It won't be any faster on an ARM processor, and once it gets faster on ARM, your x86 machine will improve, too.

2) Battery life sucks because again, MS cannot shut the hell up and is always doing things when there is, frankly, nothing to do. Look for Win8 based ARM machines to also have no battery life.

3) PCs run hot, because again, MS cannot shut the hell up so the processor and chipset are always churning, doing essentially nothing. If you have used an ARM based device to watch a movie, you will notice that the device will be a little warm to the touch after a while, because it is BUSY. The difference is, when you are done watching the movie, the device cools down because the OS knows how to shut up. Windows doesn't, so the device will be warm to the touch always. Frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if you will start seeing Windows based ARM machines with heat spreaders on them!

Microsoft will fail miserably here, or said differently, if they do something that makes ARM based platforms decent running Windows, the x86/x64 counterparts will equally benefit. Microsoft has no clue what they are doing, but they are desperate to stay relevant and so look around and say "gee, ARM things are out there, guess we should do that!"

Two problems...

One - Microsoft isn't "known" for content creation, per se. Yes, they have content creation "owned" for Office, but not for any media content creation, and certainly not for Internet content creation. 1 out of 3 does not make you an "expert" on content creation.

Two - the Courier was never even a project. If I had the money, I could have hired a media company to create that video. That doesn't mean I was running the project - just that I hired somebody to make a video for the device.

Neither MS, nor anybody else for that matter, knows how to make something like the Courier. It is an expensive, time consuming endeavor, and nothing MS has in its technology stable would have been able to have been used to make such a thing.

You might as well have asked Paramount Studios to "just execute" on the delivery of holo-decks, because they "demoed" them on Star Trek, The Next Generation.

So, your mad, then?

It's not good enough that these will be American jobs in a sector of the economy (manufacturing) that is severely hurting in the states? You have to urinate over the decision because Intel would-a-could-a gone elsewhere but couldn't?

Can't we just celebrate the fact that its happening? Sheesh.

This makes no sense

What the heck is Mr. Otellini talking about? He clearly knows nothing about what "signing" code means. There have been signed apps in Android and the iOS that have done bad things - like steal passwords, copy your private data, etc.

Plus, if anti-virus companies were to just go away due to the magic of "signing", wouldn't that have made Intel's purchase of McAfee utterly stupid?

Next patent...

Microsoft invents the idea of putting the left foot in front of the right foot, then the right in front of the left, as a means of propulsion. What is really exciting is a second breakthrough, reversing the order of feet, allowing one to walk backwards. This comes on the heels of their amazing patent for expanding one's diaphragm as a means of taking in oxygen, and occasionally blinking to ensure ones eyes stay properly moisturized and free of debris.

I like the FSF, but sheesh

I like how the FSF stands up for software freedom, but their action here seems more than a little silly and petty. Look, if the code is open sourced, then the port would have to follow the same license, right (GPL, Apache, etc.)? And the app is free, right? So, you can get it from the App Store, and you can get the code, modify it, and submit your own version, right? What, exactly, has been limited here and how, exactly, as Apple shown that they don't care about freedom or creativity? What was prevented?

Many feel that Apple provides a convenience with their App Store. By picking this fight with Apple, the FSF has said "you must change your business model", which Apple very obviously wasn't going to do. All the FSF accomplished here was destroy the open source community's ability to develop really cool iPhone apps that "scratched an itch".

Yes, they can do it for Android, and i suppose if that is wildly successful, Apple will change their policies, but really, FSF, was this ultimately a necessary thing for you to gripe about?

I completely agree with Princeton here

I so want to use the Kindle or a Kindle-like device for research. I really, really, really, really want to. And I might even be more capable of doing it than the students. The documentation I need to refer to is all on my hard drive as PDFs. Having them in one spot that doesn't take up screen real estate (so that I don't have to tab between it and whatever it is I'm working on) to be able to annotate on it, and to have them all where I can cross reference them, would be awesome.

But the e-Ink technology and/or the processor/memory they are using in the current eBook readers can't cut it. It's just not there.

Please, somebody solve this problem ;-)