On Mar 5, 11:01 pm, f3l <auditor...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello everybody
> Is the browser the new os / operative system ?
>
> we had a discussion with some of the senior programmers at the office,
> they said that the OS will always be very relevant
> I say the OS is irrelevant, and that the Browser is all that matters
> (as long as you can localhost, vim, mysql and ssh without problems).
> they said the OS will never dissapear (old ASM geizers), however, I
> agree, but I don't really think that they will make a difference.
>
> Since the browser is a layer on top of the OS, and the final layer is
> the one that gets all the attention, credit and buzz, (its the color
> of the buttons in your cellphone, not its underlying infrastructure,
> which you couldn't give a damn about (unless you are a geek like
> ourselves), what makes a difference), why should we bother to deepen
> our knowledge of OS s, when we can deepen or knowledge of Browsers, I
> mean, its the trend of the furture, right?, browsers, everywere, even
> in your cellphone?
>
> The infrastructure has a tendency to become invisible, do you know, if
> your software supports x25?
> you probably don't. Even know what x25 is (pardon me, gurus), and if
> you do, you probably don't care, because everything is transparent
> these days (it /could/ become even more transparent, but its slow and
> tedious process of interfaces on top of interfaces on top of
> interfaces, that lead to no good when something in the middle breaks
> (like compiling stuff with lots of imcompatble libs)), and we wre the
> plumbers that are supposed to know every litle quirky detal about
> every damn layer between the user and his/her data...
>
> Email had a similar story, with initially being different
> (protocols?), and stuff, and now by having standarized, well, all that
> stuff doesn't matter anymore, and you could rewrite a simpler veriosn
> of sendmail (hopefully), in less time (right?).
>
> I believe that the desktop is becoming less and less important, since
> all these buggy web2.0 js stuff has came out, so
> is the browser you use omre important than the OS?
> and if so, which browser would you recomend? (any votes for lynx?)
>
> you can have your gmail account on linux or windows and it works just
> the same, so why bother with OS wars, when you can have brand new IE
> wars, I mean, Browser wars...
>
> what do you guys think?
>
> should I stop giving a damn?
>
> or should I just move to FFX3 (which btw is the coolest thing ever
> since the sliced bread (check out the new address bar!), which is
> actually making some progress, (I've always been a opera fan, but
> might just convert).
>
> I'm in need of guru assistance and guidance...
>
> thanks in advance, for all of your base are belong to us.
> I mean, all of your kind responses.

In short, no. If you have a webmail account, try opening your client
now. How long does it take to load? That's the time your computer is
taking to parse all the Javascript, HTML, and CSS that is needed to
display the page - which takes quite a while. Try opening a desktop
email client. It takes about half the time, because precompiled code
is being run more-or-less straight through the processor.

Now, think of the implications that this would have in terms of global
warming. Computers today are powerful enough to do all of the tasks
we want them to do; if they were to do exactly the same tasks, but
rather than with code written in Javascript rather than C++ or
similar, much more computing power would be required, and much more
electrical power to run the computers - a major focus of the IT
industry at present is to reduce the impact on the environment that we
have, and using more electricity is not a good way of doing that.

Also, there are theoretically limitless styles for web pages - I don't
know about you, but I like my word processor, graphics program, and
email client to be the same colour, at least - although also having
the same icon theme would be preferable.

However, writing Javascript is much easier than C++, and you can run
programs through a web browser, with no installation. Maybe a more
accurate prediction would be that in the future a compromise, such as
semi-compiled programs written in Java, will become more common. They
allow for faster running with minimal downloading, and Java Web Start
can be used to start programs straight from the web, allowing for
convenience. The SWT toolkit, and I'm sure others, allow developers
to use the widgets supplied by the OS or display manager, keeping a
consistent look across applications.