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Brad Neuberg, Google Gears, and the Future of the Web

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the where-are-we-headed dept.

Linux.com has an interesting look at Google Gears and one of its leading evangelists, Brad Neuberg. "For Neuberg -- as for most developers -- the idea of expanding the Web's capabilities is intriguing in itself. But both inside and outside Google, his argument is that there's more at stake than just a particular piece of technology. In fact, he does not even seem particularly concerned whether Gears or some rival project takes on the role he envisions. What matters, he says, is that finding a solution to the problems of the Web is essential not only to the continued evolution of the Web, but also to its continued freedom. "

4 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why does the web need to evolve by misleb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why can't we leave the web alone, use it for what we use it for now and develop a new rich application protocol if that is what people want. It might end up replacing the web like the web replaced gopher, which replaced Archie before it, or it might become an addition to the suite of internet protocols. Why does my web browser have to be all things to all people?


    Because getting a fundamentally new common runtime environment and/or protocol to all people is f'ing hard. Especially now that the 'net has matured. With maturity comes momentum and inertia.

    --
    "THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
  2. Re:Google vs. Ajax by vux984 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    After several years of deployment, Google Maps still displays incorrectly in Firefox 2 if you spin the scroll wheel too fast. That's about where window refresh was at Microsoft Windows 2.x or so - broken.

    AJAX is a method to shoehorn functionality into a trifecta of legacy platforms that was never really designed for it. Like retrofitting a horseless carriage with a honda civic engine and bolting on some wings, a rudder, and a propeller with the intent to fly across the atlantic.

    Just because you've gotten it to fly doesn't mean you've invented a modern aircraft.

  3. Re:Why does the web need to evolve by grumbel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    USENET did not have to evolve, Did not have to evolve? Because it didn't evolve we are now stuck with dozens of web forums with proprietary data storage and no way to retrieve posts other then the HTML interface. Yeah, I know USENET still exist, but pretty much everything these days happens on either mailing lists or web forums which both lack a lot of features that USENET had back then 20 years ago.

    When you don't evolve stuff you have a very good chance to end up with a whole bunch of ugly ad hoc fixes.
  4. will they keep my data for 10 years by datadefender · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Call me old-fashioned, but I want to control where my data is stored and I want to make sure the programs I use to work my data is around years later. That is why I story my data locally (and a backup offsite) and keep my software locally on my PC. I decide when to migrate to a new version or application and only after I have verified it works with my data etc. With Web-Apps I have absolutely no control when new releases are forced on me and potentially cannot deal with my 10 year old data. I still use Office 97 - works just fine - no need to upgrade. And the data itself ? Will it still be available 10 years from now when stored at Google or some other service provider. What happens if the Google business model some day no longer works ? Will they then charge me to get to my data ?