Slashdot Mirror
Google Gears is Launched
Mister Inbetween writes "Google is rolling out a technology designed to overcome the major drawback faced by all web-based applications: the fact that they don't work without an internet connection. Google Gears is an open source technology for creating offline web applications that is being launched today at Google's annual Developer Day gatherings around the world."
There are some sample applications available here to help you get started using Google Gears. I found it pretty non-intuitive at the beginning but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it slowly.
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Shouldn't there be a link to Google Gears in the article?
Or a CD-ROM?
Safari is supported. Opera support is coming soon.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
Done ;-}
What's the point of having an offline web application?
You might as well create your own traditional app so that you don't have to deal with compatibility and security issues with a multitude of browsers and platforms. Or maybe the idea is doing something completely opposite to what Microsoft has been doing for almost a decade now, putting the browser functionality within the app.
It works by using a special browser plugin, which you must install before you can use any of the apps. That's cheating.
So it looks like this is a browser plugin. Meaning that you'd need to install it with your web application. The API is reminiscent of the WHATWG Storage Specification, but appears to be a bit more sophisticated in its reach. If I'm reading this right, the biggest difference is auto-syncing of the data with a server (when you're online) rather than having to write your own synching software.
Thus this appears to be a competitor to Adobe Apollo, but without Google defining their own container format.
Interesting. I'm not quite sure what to make of it as it's not anything that hasn't been contemplated before. Personally, I'm hesitent to adopt anything that can't be used on a live webpage as well as downloadable "webapps". However, that may not stop others who have good ideas on how this might be used.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Do you have a link for that? The FAQ I linked to says that Safari will be coming "in a future release" and says nothing about Opera.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
And here I thought it was the hideous UI and sluggish, memory-sucking JavaScript. Now I know better.
Google Gears works on the following browsers:
Additionally, the team is working on supporting Safari on Mac OS X in a future release.
The EFF said don't use Google Desktop because of vulnerabilities" "[We urge] consumers not to use this feature, because it will make their personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who've obtained a user's Google password," the EFF said in a statement" http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1925064,00.as p
If Google is under pressure from some governments to hide things, from others to store and reveal things - why would people want more, more, more Google and their vulnerabilities on a computer? As bad as Microsoft is I would rather deal with the devil I still know then the Googlers who seem to want to be the center of the cyber-universe in a way that seems more grandiose than even M$. They lost me when the started censoring stuff here US never mind China.
It seems that Google Gears can be used for more than offline applications. It includes tools for running JavaScript in background threads to prevent UI blocking, as well as a SQLLite database for storage and fast retrieval of any data you want, whether you're working offline or not.
You're probably right. But...
+ into+gear/2100-7345_3-6187596.html
http://news.com.com/Google+kicks+offline+Web+apps
"The initial code is aimed at JavaScript developers who write Ajax-style Web applications. It runs on Internet Explorer on Windows; Firefox on Windows, Mac OS and Linux; and on the Safari Mac OS browser."
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
Google is slowly reinventing the computer... to be a lot like what it was 20 years ago, except through a web browser. Just think, in the 1970s we all used ultra-thin clients called Teletype terminals to connect to mainframes. Then came the PC revolution, and soon we all had slower machines of our own. Then all those machines got as fast as mainframes, and we got the Internet, and started connecting to each other. Now we're going back to ultra-thin-clients connecting not to mainframes but to Google's giant server farm where they store all our personal data and promise not to abuse it. Nothing ever really changes, does it?
Anti-Globalism
Yes, but you have to get the user to install the plugin and accept the security warnings. Only *then* will it be available to online apps.
The market has been avoiding plugins for a long time due to the difficulty of getting end users to install the plugin software. Even with the (relative) simplicity of Microsoft ActiveX install, it often turns off the users. As a result, there are only two plugins you can (mostly) count on: Flash and Java. And that's only because they're usually installed by default.
Anyone using this for online content is taking a pretty large risk unless they control the computers that run it. e.g. It might make sense in corporate settings were updates are pushed by a central server. But that's a much smaller portion of the market than, say, Google Docs.
Of course, I imagine that Google will try to make some of these issues go away by shipping the software as part of their Google Desktop and GTalk downloads. Combined with potential downloads for the desktop application versions of their webapps, Google may get a pretty good market penetration. In which case their solution will be awesome. (Yay!) Though still only a psuedo-standard. (Boo!)
* IE7 has reversed that trend with plugin pages being blocked by default. Try their demos in IE7, and you'll find it to be less userfriendly than it should be.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I'm inclined to believe that CNet made the mistake. Google claims that it works on Firefox for OS X. My guess is that CNet either assumed that OS X support == Safari support or they decided to preemptively report the upcoming Safari support.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
As a web developer, I don't see the wide adoption of "offline web application". Why not just create a desktop app that talks to the webapp through web services when you get back the connection? I've looked into Dojo offline examples, but still can't think of any business scenarios around an offline web application. I guess like what the article suggested, for email and word or image processing makes sense...but then how often do we really need to implement an application like that? I'd love to read some other ideas using offline web applications from slashdotters.
Jumptree Project Management
There are a number of web servers that are fairly tiny and run on PCs... Nothing stopping a stand-alone browser application from installing it's own web server...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Suppose that I, for example, run a small service-oriented business, with technicians and service trucks and customer appointments, in addition to the normal gamut of meetings and other internals. Suppose that some of these technicians are located in different towns.
Suppose that, because of geographic disparity, it becomes a pain in the ass to manage a central paper-based schedule and keep everyone on the same page. And suppose I find that the solution to this problem is to implement some sort of network-aware calender. And, that I want to be able to access and modify this calender by a variety of means, from standalone PalmOS devices to Windows boxen to WinCE phones, because the different techs, salespeople, and managers all have their own levels of technical ability and devices of choice.
And now, just suppose that something like Google Calender fits this bill and is put in service. Everyone knows where everyone else is, what they're doing later today (or next week). Scheduling a job can happen easily, and conflicts can be seen and avoided immediately. Life is good, and the paper schedule is forgotten (good riddance).
With me so far?
Good.
Now, suppose that the Intar-web is down, and Google Calender is unreachable.
Trucks stop rolling. Customers get angry about missed appointments. Jobs don't get done. And, the kicker: Nobody, except perhaps the stubborn old geek with an offline Palm Pilot, has any idea what anyone (including themselves!) is supposed to be doing. The company basically takes a vacation until connectivity is restored, which (in small business) means waiting as long as it takes for Time Warner or SBC to correct the problem.
Having offline web application support, if implemented well, can fix this problem. Even if new jobs can't be scheduled electronically, at least work on existing stuff can continue, as all that it takes is one person with Firefox on a desktop machine to pass out orders.
The worst-case, then, goes from having no data at all and a complete cessation of work, to at least having old data. A notepad and cell phones can then fill in the blanks for new jobs (just like it used to), which can be entered into the calender system once the Internet connection comes back.
Which is quite likely good enough.
Kid-proof tablet..
I think this *is* a "sane way".
I think Java had some great goals; I don't think it worked as well as it was promised...
Will this follow Java in that? We'll see...
A cheerful little bird is sitting here singing.
IE had this feature for ages. HTA (HTML Applications) can be offline applications.
And now Firefox is getting the same feature.
Why do we need yet another plug-in.
Wow, brilliant, how about i just wait til i have a connection and use my web app then
and what about when your connection goes down? this guy made a good point regarding this in the 2nd half of his post.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
I was aiming at +funny. /. Procedure.
So your comment is either Offtopic for Funny, or Insightful for
I agree this cant happen soon enough, Google are the innovators now not tired old Microsoft, If I have to suffer through another lazy OS release or another incremental upgrade of Office, roll on Google desktop development. This cant happen soon enough in my opinion Webmaster, http://http//www.seowebsiteadvice.com
Well, if you were stocking CD-ROMs of Google then maybe you'd see the need. :-)
I'd like to Google when not online, but can't seem to find a CD-ROM of it.
Additionally, the team is working on supporting Safari on Mac OS X in a future release.
I'm sure that will show up about the same time as Picasa for OS X, which has been coming for what - four years?
Three Squirrels
So, what about the millions of people who won't pay very close attention, and will type a bunch of stuff into Google Docs or whatever -- and fail to notice that their two-year-old unplugged the router? The web app keeps running and it indicates "App Offline" in the corner of the screen... they go to work and TEHOMG no document!
What then? At least right now it's all very clear: no internet, page doesn't load, check for the problem. Is it just me?
if we head in the direction of download first web apps.... how is this better then just downloading a compiled app? certainly not cross platform - you need IE or FF to run it.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Am I the only one who thinks the Big 4 browsers should be supported, and not just FireFox/IE?
Am I the only one that thinks websites should be coded to the standard and browsers that don't imeplement them can be left without?
That's generally how the Big 4 browsers get supported.
It's amazingly easy to make an app work across FireFox, Safari, and Opera, but if you have to target IE it makes life a living hell.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Flash is the devil incarnate and Dojo might be evil as well, after all he sounds oriental. Google on the other hand, does no evil. So that's why its better.
The iPhone doesn't support desktop style apps. This could help bridge the gap if google / Apple were to support something like gears on the iPhone's browser.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
It's about coding to the standards. Firefox, Safari, and Opera are all (more or less) standards compliant. It's quite easy to write code for all three of them. IE is NOT standards compliant, and has become a cancer upon the web. If enough sites start pushing neat features that IE doesn't support, users will begin upgrading to a better browser. (One that looks better, too!) That will either force Microsoft to fix their browser or make IE irrelevant.
Of course, that's just a pipe dream for now. But with neat stuff like Canvas, Storage, Event-Source, Video, and Audio showing up in the latest web browsers, it's tempting to pull the plug on IE for even a small portion of a site. Especailly sites that provide services to popular embedded devices like cellphones or the Wii.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Hmm... isn't it "Beta" software? Give them a chance to catch up to the real goods.
Silly me, i thought the major drawback of web based applications was that HTML sucks for building rich applications.
So basically what Gears offers is the worst of both worlds. A terrible rich application dev environment (HTML + JS) combined with database concurrency headaches. Awesome!
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
The main difference is that users of alternative internet devices generally don't get to choose their browser, whereas most IE6 users are a few clicks away from running Firefox, Opera, or at least IE7.
I agree with the GP; it's better to assist the disabled than the lazy.
Of course, if you're running a commercial site and hits = money, priorities change. But I'd still rather offer IE6 users a reduced-functionality version of the site (with clear instructions on how to update/replace their browser) than waste tons of time and effort on a "No Browser Left Behind" policy.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Dojo uses whatever storage service is available. That includes WHATWG Storage, Flash storage, and IE controls.
The biggest difference with Google Gears is that the storage mechanism can be configured to automatically sync with the parent server. It also allows you to run your code asynchronously as well as provides direct access to an SQLLite database. However, these features are secondary to the primary purpose of providing auto-synced data storage.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
What this solves: * Location dependence * Online dependence * Needing to lug hardware around (such as a USB thumbdrive) I'm having trouble understanding what about this is insane.
Two key differences are that this is a collaboration of the Dojo Offline project and Google (which grew out of dojo.storage which is based around flash storage) and is using a relational DB (SQLite) as opposed to a flat-file data store.
It's also Open Source and they have support from Adobe, Mozilla and Opera (as mentioned in the Press Release).
Of course IBM rolled this out six years ago in the Domino server, although I don't really expect Google's offering to handle Replication/Save conflicts as well as Domino does. Of course, now that there is actually another product out, the anti-Notes trolls can start complaining that the 6 year old tech from IBM isn't using the same API that the brand new offering from Google uses.
I cannot work without internet. How am I supposed to check slashdot from time to time?
This is sad. As a programming language, Javascript makes Visual Basic look good.
The wierd thing is that we went through all this with Java almost a decade ago. "Gears" is supposed to do roughly the same things Java was originally supposed to do.
Java went in a strange direction. "Applets" in the browser were never very popular. Java desktop applications were not widely successful, although a whole office suite was written in Java. Java ended up being the replacement for COBOL; it's what runs the business logic on the server.
The real innovation in Gears is providing a local database, instead of files, as the basic storage medium. That's not new in the Microsoft world (many apps use Jet, Microsoft's little database), but the open source world is still mostly in the flat file era for local storage. SQLite gets you locking, atomic transactions, structured data, and search capability. And you can get at those files via SQL; you don't have to access them through Gears and JavaScript. We may see bindings to the Gears back end for other languages. The middleware portion of this may be more important than the browser-based user interface.
Incidentally, no one seems to have mentioned that Google has launched a replacement for SourceForge.
Thing is, I like the mozilla approach ( http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/2007/02/offline-zimbr a-with-firefox.html ) better. I think it's because there's no need to install 3rd party apps and such. But thing is, as it seems Google is ahead in this, and if people start adopting it (remains to be seen) then the mozilla approach probably won't stir too much water when it's released.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
because last time, Microsoft was Google, and IBM was Microsoft. But now Google is Microsoft and Microsoft is IBM. If you haven't read any of Clayton Christensen's books, now would be a good time to read The Innovator's Solution by Christensen and Raynor. Ever since the telephone, small upstart companies have been offering products and services that were shunned by the market leader's best customers, and hence the market leader, usually because the product underperformed the expectations of the market leader's best customers. But the market entrant was able to make enough profit and gradually got better and better, and then started pulling customers out of the market leader's business network.
RCA didn't use transistors in small radios until it was too late. Western Union didn't use the telephone until it was too late. Microsoft didn't work with the FOSS community, and now it is too late. Google is great at broadcasting software. Microsoft is still mostly delivering software the old, slow way. This news is another digital tipping point. The OS is becoming less crucial. GNU Linux is getting its foot in the door with Dell. Google and 1000 other new start ups are using the power of FOSS to do creative stuff. Microsoft seems to be focused on older business models (DRM'd content) while Google continues to broadcast everything from its own software (Google algorithms on Linux) to fun, new format for video (YouTube shorts). I think that we are going to see some major changes in the way that desktop software is funded, distributed, and delivered. Once the Microsoft monopoly on the desktop is cracked, think of the changes we will see.
Due to Google's abuse of the word beta this argument no longer applies for their services. Which is a shame because there are valid times for Google to use it.
Yes this is a problem if you're constantly sharing data. Many people aren't, hence this isn't a problem for us but instead solves many other problems.
I'm at the GDDAU and saw the demo, this is very interesting.
Me lost me cookie at the disco.
If I was silly enough (which I'm not) to use Google docs for university work I would need offline access for the few times my internet dies.
How does this compare to Dojo Offline?
http://dojotoolkit.org/offline
Woo, another beta... yaaay...
Couldn't google make something that actually evolves out of the beta? I mean Gmail is STILL in beta according to the logo... 3 years of beta "testing"? Isn't that enough?
Um, there are no W3C standards that address this particular functionality. It is platform-specific by definition. If you are going to run some kind of obscure fetishware browser, you've got to accept that commercial developers are not going to bust their asses writing code on your behalf.
You mean can't install an alternative browser on your xbox? You are now officially a victim of microsoft lock-in. Not "boo", "boo-hoo".
But anyway, I have a windows mobile device with minimo and opera installed, so I don't know what mobile users your talking about.
I've been posting on the net since 1994 and I still haven't come up with a good sig!
Though still only a psuedo-standard. (Boo!) :-)
What you call a "pseudo standard" is how good standards are created: first you use and document a technology, then, after several years of practical use, you go to a standards body.
Unfortunately, these days, a "standard" seems to mean to many people a rubber stamping of some idea that some committee or engineers cooked up, with little or no practical usage. W3C is guilty of that, and ECMA even more so.
It will be interesting to see whether you can use Google Docs offline with the Palm Foleo. The Foleo seems ideal for these kinds of apps.
Actually, google tends to pull the plug on Safari support, not IE. Mainly because google likes using things like XSLT and Design Mode.. which work in IE/FF/Opera but not in Safari. That's why Google docs and picassa support everything but safari.
Actually, Sun cooperating with Google to provide an alternative OS to compete with Microsoft wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Since Google has already expertise in using online-dynamic content (from Calendar to Spreadsheet among other...) to provide services to end-users, why not combine a platform-independent programming language like Java with Google's own widgets? Let's admit it, Linux will never beat Windows. But Google with the right partners has a fair chance...
"Sum Ergo Cogito"
I'm not sure but i was under impression that you can actually have google gadgets in your desktop too. You need to have Google Desktop installed ofcourse...
yush
Actually, it's easier now than ever before. All of the big libraries for javascript like Prototype and (my favorite) jQuery already deal with the cross-browser stuff for the most part. If you use them, you'll rarely run into a place where the difference between browsers is a problem if you know your stuff beforehand. It's still pretty rare even if you're just learning, but knowing you way around makes it even easier.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
YES. Why "big 4"? What makes that arbitrary number important? The standards are what are important. Support those, and we can all benefit, by voting with our feet for browsers that work.
I'm not sure about Safari, but as far as Opera goes, this article says that it supports it.
You do know that its easier to do FF/IE first and then fix the Safari/Opera bugs?
Knowing Google they will do their best.
It appears obvious to me, though I've been wrong plenty of times before, that this is another part of the puzzle for Google Docs. Once they've 'perfected' the system you won't have to worry about your link being up to be able to get to your docs. The next step is an intranet version for the enterprise. All in good time...
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
Google Gears of War for the Xbox 360.
Bryan
On the first point, I don't know the full percentage breakdown, but between Firefox and IE, you're bound to be reaching close to 99% of Internet users. "Should support more browsers" is a philosophical comment only, and while I agree philosophically that they should, I do not see any business reason for them to do so. By supporting Firefox, they are supporting Windows, Mac, and Linux users...we should be thankful for that alone.
On the second point, if you think, even remotely, that telling IE users they can't use your web service is a good idea, you're nuts. So, yes, that is just you.
See, though I've criticized essentially everything you said, I totally agree!
The Database module is also reminiscent of the HTML5 Client-side database storage, which was added to the spec about a week ago. (Hmm, coincidence?)
The spec is currently very under-defined, but the intent is that some implementations (at least Firefox) will ship with it implemented using SQLite, and then people will start using it, so SQLite's dialect of SQL will become the de facto standard and everyone else has to implement it the same and then that will be specced.
Google Gears is using SQLite too, and the API is pretty similar, so it would be an interesting way to implement the HTML5 executeSql in older browsers.
tried wine?
The whole advantage of thin-client web applications is you can access them from anywhere you have a browser. If you have to install software on machines then why not just install a proper application which will run lot faster and be more reliable.
This must be why google went after googlegear.com, I use to do a fair amount of shopping there at least till I heard about newegg.
You sure about that? It looks to me like it's in the HTML5 working draft to me:
? rev=1.29#storage
;-)
http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/html5/spec/Overview.html
"This specification introduces two related mechanisms, similar to HTTP session cookies [RFC2965], for storing structured data on the client side.
The first is designed for scenarios where the user is carrying out a single transaction, but could be carrying out multiple transactions in different windows at the same time.
The second storage mechanism is designed for storage that spans multiple windows, and lasts beyond the current session. In particular, Web applications may wish to store megabytes of user data, such as entire user-authored documents or a user's mailbox, on the clientside for performance reasons."
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
This is patently untrue. It's much easier to do FireFox, Safari, and Opera all at once, then support IE. The former three support web standards, while IE *doesn't*.
Oh, and Google almost never supports Opera. (Their new Wii RSS reader being the exception that proves the rule.) Which is something that's becoming a bit of an annoyance.
In any case, this ends up having nothing to do with web standards as the API relies on a Google plugin.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Define 'abuse'. Define "Google's abuse of beta".
Do you mean Google has labeled for too long some of its products as 'beta'? If yes, please, point to the accepted standard of duration for "beta", over which it's an abuse.
And while we're at it, and fully knowing that little this has to do with your comment, I would like to protest against Microsoft's abuse of "version N" for all N >= 1.0 .
I speak England very best
Actually, if you look into the javascript code you'll see Safari-specific code in there...
I guess they went for a roll-out before everything was ready.
Carefully crafted sig.
This seems strongly to be poaching the name of TurboGears. Not friendly.
Matt
Don't you think that any browser that wants to support the new web era should implemente decent JavaScript to make it easier to make compatible apps ?
I'm positive, don't belive me look at my karma
I think you're right on that one. I've never installed Google Desktop.... never saw the benefit... just eats up more space with things I need maybe 2 times a day.
So maybe this is evolutionary for Google rather than revolutionary. The biggest change would be adding the local DB/File store.
Will be interesting to see if the FF3 team gets into the ring now that they're including SQLite in the browser by default. Most likely it will just mean that you can a) write your own plugins using the basic-basic hooks provided by FF3 plugin API OR b) use Google Gears and get access to a more feature rich API that will handle the heavy lifting for you so you can focus on writing your feature code.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
If you read my link, it says, "Additionally, the team is working on supporting Safari on Mac OS X in a future release."
:)), it needs an actual browser plugin to make this work.
So support for Safari is promised, though on what a timetable is unknown. And while the Javascript might currently support Safari (which is good defensive programming
No word on Opera, though someone else in the thread posted a link that says "Opera is receptive". Which may mean that Opera will have to support the API itself if it wants to see its browser supported. (Nothing new there.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Actually, American manufacturers did make transistor radios early on, but they were insanely expensive.
The way I heard the story was that American enginners were used to high impedence (voltage driven) tightly-speced vacuum tubes. The first transistors to appear on the market were fairly low impedence (current driven) junction devices with characteristics that varied a lot from device to device. American engineers redesigned their circuits for lower impedence, but continued to expect that the active devices would meet tight specs. That meant that manufacturing had to buy devices that were among the tiny subset of the production run that met the engineer's specs. So their transistors were expensive. And so were the radios made using them.
Japanese engineers on the other hand, designed new circuits that would work reliably with just about any transistor that worked at all. That meant that their radios could be built with the semiconductors that were left over after all the ones that met American Engineering specs had been selected out. Those transistors were cheap because there were a lot of them and not many people willing to buy them. As a result, Japanese transistor radios were a LOT cheaper than American designed radios.
Could well be true.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
When it is directly linked from the front page of its primary application (web search->google groups), especially with no warnings, I think it is fair to say it is not Beta anymore.
Rich
You know you are worng, thus preempt the mods.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If we limit ourselves to the West (most of North America, Western/Centra Europe and Australia), then I'll agree with the statement. But once you start looking at more of the developing countries then I think this statement is far from true. Look at places in the middle east, central asia, nearly all of Africa, and even rural america and the internet is still a long ways from being reliable with the necessary bandwidth. On top of the connections not being there, power isn't always stable, so your gateway may or may not have power today even if you do. On top of it, you start slapping a satellite gateway inbetween you and the target IP and your connection just got even worse.
Yes, connectivity is certainly getting better and companies like Inmarsat and Thuraya make their money on providing access in places where connectivity is inherently difficult, but it's still a long ways from being ubiquitous.
The scary part (IMO) is that as the more technically advanced countries become more and more web/internet reliant, the technology divide becomes that much worse for third-world/developing nations. The one laptop per child effort is something that I think will help close this gap a bit, but as the world becomes more internet driven, what good is having a laptop if you don't have sufficient connectivity to tie into it? A lot of these places are still running 64kbps. Have you _TRIED_ surfing at 64kbps these days? It sucks bad!
I'm not saying that the world isn't headed to a webbased interface, or whether or not this is a bad thing. Just saying that there is still a very large portion of the world that is a very long ways off from having sufficient internet connectivity and it certainly would be nice if people kept this in mind when they're developing applications/interfaces.
Just my $0.03
Nonsense. Why does everyone in the computing industry think in absolutes? We don't have to stop using fat clients because someone makes creating thin clients easier. They still both have a place in the world. Use the best tool for the job. Google isn't trying to reinvent anything. They are not trying to take us all back to thin clients. Why would they want to? Just because they are advancing the state of the art for webapps doesn't mean they want every application to be a webapp. They are also pushing a bunch of desktop apps. More importantly, they are pushing the integration of web and desktop apps.
I've even got 2 functioning browsers on my treo 650. Opera mini and Blazer.
just a great enabler, so i would not put the blame on Google... .Net and Sharepoint specifically on the Windows platform.
Webapps are being developed by all kinds of companies and web sites. Before that the move to n-tier application design started the pendulum. AJAX as a techanology and SOA as a design are pushing the pendulum further that way in general,
Who knows, maybe this centralized lockdown may spawn a similar rebellion against centralized control and computing as was the case with big iron hardware (and thin terminal) vs personal computing.
Or maybe someone will adeptly manage to walk the middle line - and this is where I think Google has an edge over MS.
In the world of cheap Broadband and Wifi the lack of a web connection isn't the biggest drawback is the reliance of a web browser acting as an Office suite. It's completely impracticable but Web 2.0 says we must do it anyway.
On another note, how useful will this be for devices that aren't running on top of one of the three OS's specified? If your device isn't running firefox or IE, then it's probably going to have some problems with Gears, which is obviously not just built on top of the browsers.
The way I see it, internet applications are an all or nothing sort of thing. You either have internet access or you don't. If you have it, you might chose to utilize online apps such as a word processor because it is convenient. The reason you chose to use a browser based word processor is probably largely based on the fact that you DO have regular and consistent internet access. Being able to use it offline is perhaps a bonus, but certainly not essential. As we know, there are plenty of offline word processors/text editors out there to chose from. People with intermittent or no net access are nto deprived of this application. They just have to use a more "traditional" implementation.
Besides apps like Google Docs, which more or less reinvents (badly, i might add) a desktop app, there is very little reason to make an internet app work offline. The very nature of an internet is that it is a shared resource. It doesn't make much sense, except if very specific circumstances, to work with a shared resource offline. That is a contradiction.
One thing that might be interesting are projects that seek to replicate or cache certain internet resources such as Wikipedia on a local networks that don't not have consistent 'net access. That is the kind of thing that developing countries might need. Who cares if people can edit their MySpace page or Flickr account offline? Most net apps are just superfluous crap when you think about what a developing country might need.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
I tried the examples and doing some sample apps--I found the programming language for Google Gears basically based on Javascript which, though I've learned how to use it, is pretty unrefined (I avoid using it if I can) and belongs to the non-user-friendly philosophy of "object-oriented programming for object-oriented programming's sake" rather than for practicality or useability's sake.
I think Google will gain more developers and acceptance and a thriving Google Gear community if they offer PHP as an alternative language for programming Google Gears or replace the current language entirely with a PHP+Javascript+HTML+SQL style.
Did anybody read the last line of the same article on http://www.ft.com/cms/s/51c32f3c-0efc-11dc-b444-00 0b5df10621.html and scratch their head?
"Microsoft is either going to have to support this or do something like it," says David Mitchell Smith
Seems to me that Google Gears is merely an answer to Microsoft's ActiveX techlology. This web-to-desktop link concept is not new. Google is guilty of what MS usually does.
1) Copy somebody else's successful idea.
2) Dump several million $$$ into it to integrate it tightly with their platform
3) Call it innovation.
I agree completly - it would be great to not allow IE users on your site. Check out codesmack.com from IE to see the welcome message which kindly encourages the users to rethink their life and download a better browser. If you're already using a modern browser you can see what you're missing here. You can buy a shirt with the message "Serriously, you're still using IE?!?". Go ahead and let everyone know what you think of their browser choice. You can read about Firing Your IE Users for more information.
I hope goolge gears will support Safari soon but I'm excited to try this out.
Java is not installed by default with Windows XP or Vista. So unless an OEM installs it (which I wouldn't count on, although I haven't bought an off-the-shelf Windows PC in several years), you can't count on Java being available as a browser plugin.
OEMs started shipping Java around the time that Microsoft stopped:
p layer/
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-1015723.html
So it does show up on a lot of PCs.
Mac OS X also has Java bundled into the OS, and the Opera download provided an option to include Java until recently. So Sun still has fairly good market penetration. Adobe has a nice chart showing both Flash and Java penetration here: http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flash
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
php is server side, and thus any php code must be executed by the server, making online operation impossible. Google's trying to suppliment client-side coding here
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Hi. Thanks for your comments. But what I'm saying is Google's client-side coding is based on the Javascript language. I was suggesting they base it on the PHP language (I'm referring to PHP's programming language and not the server-side platform).
We expect more from browsers. Off-line contents / history are not just enough to serve those purposes. It needs some more features like, access to storage and much sophisticated client-side control, much like client-side sand box models.
That sounds horrible. Embrace and extend, without consideration to suitability. Yes, I know SQLite is a nice product, but I'm actually less than impressed with a lot of the HTML5 stuff I've seen thus far.
I'm amazed that this stuff has got this far. Wasn't the whole XHTML struggle to get away from presentational semantics deep within (rightly or wrongly) previous HTML incarnations, and now we get this crap thrown in.
Should we have something like this? Sure.
Should it have anything to do with Hyper Text Markup Language? Not even remotely.