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| Creating the future of mobile with Firefox OS |
| By Thom Holwerda, submitted by MOS6510 on 2012-10-11 01:44:15 |
| "Just under a month ago I wrote a personal post about my thoughts on Firefox OS and why I think there is something 'magical' about what it stands for and the possibilities it brings to the table. This post is a follow-up that aims to cover much of the same ground but with extra detail and more of a technical focus." |
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| When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail huh |
| By Shane on 2012-10-11 04:39:51 |
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When the answer to "why?" is "because HTML5", I know that this happened because engineering was looking for a problem to match an existing solution. HTML5 is great, and somewhat immature, tech. However, HTML5 in and of itself does not make a great phone. It's also pointless to compare the speed at which a HTML5 app runs in Firefox OS with the speed with which the app runs in a Webkit browser on Android. How about comparing Gekko with Dalvik instead? Also, let's stop with this "magical" business already. Steve Jobs could barely pull it off. People, we are not Steve Jobs. OK? |
 - Score: 4 |
| I dunno ... |
| By WorknMan on 2012-10-11 04:54:38 |
| If Javascript is so great, why are there so many wrapper languages (or whatever you call them) like Coffeescript, that allow web developers to NOT have to code in Javascript? |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail huh |
| By RichterKuato on 2012-10-11 05:52:01 |
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Where do they state "because HTML5" as the reason for Firefox OS? I think there is legitimate concern about Mozilla zealous touting of Web apps being the future of app development. I myself wonder if they can prove it's viability for low-end devices but it sounds like you're creating a strawman. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail huh |
| By Radio on 2012-10-11 09:21:19 |
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> When the answer to "why?" is "because HTML5", I know that this happened because engineering was looking for a problem to match an existing solution. FirefoxOS's use of HTML5 is not a solution looking for a problem, it is a solution to a known problem: HTML5 webpages/webapps are slow in iOS and Android browser. They are sub-par compared to native apps. And I thought it would always be the case, whatever double-core A6 and 22-nm Exynos processor we would throw behind, until FirefoxOS came and proved this belief was wrong. A barebones OS with a good rendering engine on top can do the trick. And am rather glad the Mozilla Foudation is doing it and pushing it seriously. |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE: When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail huh |
| By moondevil on 2012-10-11 09:30:42 |
| What would you expect from a blog whose owner is the author of Foundation HTML5 Canvas? |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[2]: When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail huh |
| By crystall on 2012-10-11 10:04:58 |
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> FirefoxOS's use of HTML5 is not a solution looking for a problem, it is a solution to a known problem: HTML5 webpages/webapps are slow in iOS and Android browser. They are sub-par compared to native apps. I'm working on the project and I must say that one of its biggest upsides is that it puts a lot of pressure on delivering top-notch performance from fairly limited hardware. The large optimization and tuning effort required will deliver within Firefox too (the codebase is shared) and generally should raise the bar on what kind of responsiveness and performance users will expect from web pages in general. |
| - Score: 5 |
| RE[2]: When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail huh |
| By Mrokii on 2012-10-11 10:16:14 |
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The article states "because it's possible", which isn't much better. As much as I like the idea of a truly open Phone-OS I am not quite convinced that it will be as open as Mozilla wants it to be, due to the other players they have to deal with. I also can't follow the "not being locked in"-argument. For one, that depends on how the data you use is saved and how easy it is to transfer/convert it to something/somewhere else. As history has shown, Open Source is no guarantee that you can take your data with you everywhere you go. While it's possible in theory, even if the data is "open", it is usually rather difficult for the casual user to transfer their data from one software to another, because so many still use their own format or database-fields and usually there are no converters available. And in the case of Mozilla OS, of course people will be locked in, as there will be APIs specific to the OS. And as long as they're only available on Mozilla OS, people can't use any of the apps on anything else. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: I dunno ... |
| By Mrokii on 2012-10-11 10:41:13 |
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I think the problem in that case isn't JavaScript as such (although it do seem to have its problems), but the whole package of Html, CSS and JavaScript, which I have always thought of being a pita to work with. To me it seems that many of the extensions deal with this problem by offering shortcuts to otherwise over-complicated tasks. Speaking of that, one thing I absolutely *don't* like about Mozilla OS is that it is just another form of lock in, being that one seems to be forced to use that hellish combination of Html, CSS and JavaScript (okay,that's overly dramatic, but I am really not a fan of these technologies, though mainly because of the less-than-intuitive way to use CSS). |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[3]: When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail huh |
| By Lennie on 2012-10-11 10:45:20 |
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"As much as I like the idea of a truly open Phone-OS I am not quite convinced that it will be as open as Mozilla wants it to be, due to the other players they have to deal with." This is why they are doing it, to prevent it from becoming even less open. They are working on making every API available as a W3C standard. You want to have access to the webcam from Firefox OS ? You do that the same way any normal webpage/browser would do it. Because there is a W3C standard for that. I believe it is called: getUserMedia And it is available on Chrome, Opera and Firefox. Edited 2012-10-11 10:48 UTC |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: I dunno ... |
| By Lennie on 2012-10-11 10:53:43 |
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The problem with Javascript was that it could not easily get rid of all of it's original design flaws because it had to stay compatible with IE6, IE7, IE8. Because the "compiler" is in the browser. IE6 and IE7 are now almost dead. Although it looks like there might be more users on IE6 than IE7 soon. Maybe even IE9 needs to die before we get really new stuff in Javascript. IE10 has a modern Javascript engine. But IE9 is not gonna die anytime soon, Microsoft won't release a IE10 for Windows 7. |
| - Score: 2 |
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