Apple's SproutCore, OSS Javascript-Based Web Apps

99BottlesOfBeerInMyF writes "AppleInsider is running an article about Apple's new SproutCore Web application development framework, utilizing Javascript and some nifty HTML 5 to offer a 'Cocoa-inspired' way to create powerful Web applications. Apple built on the OSS SproutIt framework developed for an online e-mail manager called 'Mailroom.' Apple used this framework to build their new Web application suite (replacing .Mac) called MobileMe. Since SproutCore applications rely on JavaScript, it seems Apple had good reason to focus on Squirrelfish for faster JavaScript interpretation in Webkit. Apple hosted a session last Friday at WWDC introducing SproutCore to developers, but obviously NDAs prevent developers from revealing the details of that presentation. Apple has a chance here to keep the Web becoming even more proprietary as Silverlight and Flash battle it out to lock the Web application market into one proprietary format or another. Either way, this is a potential alternative, which should make the OSS crowd happy." TechDIrt's writeup on the browser evolving towards acting as an OS expands on the theme AppleInsider raises.

Comments

Another good article on this...

[Nicky G]

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/06/14/cocoa-for-windows-flash-killer-sproutcore/ This is from Roughly Drafted.

correction

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get "some" services which are "similar" to .mac for free.

But not all of them and not in the same way.

There are a number of nuances that can not be completely replicated by the free alternatives and they certainly will not be as tightly integrated into the OS and into 3rd party apps that run on the OS.

Sorry, but you're dismissing some things you don't know everything about.

And calling people retards certainly does not help your case.

Re:But what will the code look like?

[riceboy50]

I think you are misunderstanding the purpose of this. It's not an application that generates code for you. It's an application framework, like Cocoa is for the native OSX environment, which provides simple abstracted access to do certain tasks via APIs. This just allows application developers to spend less time worrying about "under the hood" code to make things cross-browser compatible and so forth.

proprietary

[bcrowell]

Apple has a chance here to keep the Web becoming even more proprietary as Silverlight and Flash battle it out to lock the Web application market into one proprietary format or another.

It's not true that Flash is completely proprietary. There are multiple open-source compilers, and there's an open-source browser plugin. You do have to work hard to develop in flash using an OSS software stack, but there are people doing it. Gnash, the open-source browser plugin, has gotten to the point where it can play you-tube videos, provided you have the right hardware and sacrifice an unblemished calf. Adobe has also been slowly moving in the right direction as far as open-sourcing some of their code, and relaxing some of the more onerous licensing restrictions. A lot of the problems with making flash more open are actually problems with codecs, and that situation is also showing signs of improving, with support for less patent-encumbered codecs being added to newer versions of flash.

Re:proprietary

[Dak RIT]

SproutCore is pretty impressive for building real JS web applications, although the story doesn't real end there.

There's a convergence of other improvements, such as HTML5, CSS, and SVG, that are filling a lot of the multimedia roles previously the domain of flash.

For example, WebKit already supports CSS transforms, gradients, client-side database storage, animation, HTML5 media, downloadable fonts, masks, reflections, etc.

A lot of these things are only available in WebKit right now, although they've all been proposed or will be proposed as web standards in the near future, and provide a nice glimpse at where the web is heading. Web 3.0 (or whatever marketing term people come up with) is clearly though going to be focused on multimedia.

Re:There are 6 million iPhones out there

[Talez]

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/3/apple_s_iphone_smashes_larger_market_on_web_video_music_usage

The most important thing about the iPhone isn't the sleek design, the touchscreen, iTunes integration, or any other single feature. It's the way that people use the device. Specifically, it's that people actually use it to do stuff besides making phone calls. Examples:

Almost 85% of iPhone owners browse the Web on their phones, versus 58% of the U.S. smartphone market and 13.1% of the overall U.S. mobile market, according to mobile research firm M:Metrics.
Some 31% of iPhone owners watch mobile TV or video, like Google's (GOOG) built-in YouTube software, compared to 4.6% of the overall market.
About 20% of iPhone owners access Facebook, versus 1.5% of the overall market.
And 74% of iPhone owners listened to music on their phones, compared to 28% of the smartphone market and 6.7% of the overall market.

Even if the usage is overstated that's still a hell of a lot of mobile Internet users.

The iPhone isn't like a regular smartphone. Rather than trying to supplement an experience for someone with existing shitty expectations of the big boy Internet on mobile devices, it's trying to broadly appeal to the market and it's becoming a catalyst that is literally changing the dynamics of the mobile data market.

Saying that people will be loading binary apps will kill off web development is like saying Web 2.0 is pointless because we all have Windows.

Re:RoughlyDrafted

[DECS]

Sorry that's not true and you know it.

Over a thousand of my readers wrote Digg to ask it to stop censoring my articles (and cc:ed me) after a small contingent of Digg users complained that I was poking at their Xbox, Zune, and Windows Enthusiast views.

Digg has never accused me of creating scores of accounts, and some anonymous blog entry is not "credible evidence."

Promoting articles I write by submitting them to sites designed for that purpose is not spam.

It can use any backend

[Santana]

The author just happens to use Ruby on Rails, but you can use Java also (Apple is using WebObjects) or PHP ...

280 North seems to have the same idea in mind.

[phuul]

It seems like the guys at 280 Slides have been working on something similar. They have an Apple background and called their language Objective-J, from what I can tell it's an extension on JavaScript in a similar manner to way Objective-C is to C. Their Cocoa like framework on Objective-J is called Cappuccino.

Now I don't know if SproutCore is anything like what they are doing (wasn't at WWDC so I don't know the details), but the end goals of both projects seem like the same thing. A language and framework where whatever you make should just work across browsers. It's very early days for both, so we will have to see. From the article it seems like SproutCore is going to be fairly open. The 280 North guys seem like they want something similar for Objective-J and Cappuccion but they are still working on cleaning up the frameworks.

Either way, the competition should be good and hopefully bring sanity to the client side scripting world.