Slashdot Mirror
The Future of Google Chrome
TRNick writes "Lars Bak, who heads up development of Google Chrome's cornerstone javascript engine, talks about why Google is so focused on in-browser javascript performance, the role Chrome has played in driving up javascript performance in other browsers, and why it's taking so long to introduce support for third-party extensions. 'The web is becoming an integral part of the computer and the basic distinction between the OS and the browser doesn't matter very much any more,' he says."
As we've seen with Windows and IE.... the distinction between browser and and OS matters quite a bit. That is if you don't want to get accused of being and evil monopoly.
You can't take the sky from me.
is that its future per se doesn't matter.
What Google cares about is that there is a least one standards-compliant browser out there with fast javascript. Sure Google might have a slight preference for people using Chrome over another browser with fast javascript (like, say, Safari), but what really matters to them is that they are able to deliver web apps that are fast enough to be reasonable competitors to traditional desktop apps.
Chrome is a combination insurance policy/open-source soapbox whose purpose is to make sure that Google apps (and other web apps) will always have a browser to run on.
Expected time to finish is 1 hour and 60 minutes.
I guess it works if you picture Google as taking on a Borg-like mentality.
That is UK-English, it seems TechRadar is a British site. I agree, it sounds really strange and illogical if you are used to US-English.
Circumcision is child abuse.
How come it's Windows-only still if the browser is all that matters and the OS isn't, Google?
I disagree.
The problem with javascript is still browser incompabilities, and that would not lessen with other scriping languages.
I'd argue it's stupid since you're referring to a single entity in a plural sense, which is grammatically incorrect. And no, the excuse that it refers to a collection of people is stupid. You don't say "The set of integers are infinite", do you?
I use it as my main browser. I've got a portable Firefox and (of course) IE, but I only fire them up when something isn't working right in Chrome. This is happening less and less.
Being uninstalled?
Until they get support for Firefox addons or get a base of addons equal to Firefox's, it won't be going on my computer anymore. ;*( I used it for about two weeks after its release, and then switched back to Firefox and never looked back.
YES!
YYYY/MM/DD makes so much more sense, as it means that you get sane sorting when ordering using a computer.
DD/MM/YYYY results in a mess of dates, whereas YYYY/MM/DD always orders dates in chronological order.
I hate printers.
To be fair, we've butchered Latin as well as German.
More specifically for me, until Chrome incorporates addons/extensions equivalent to NoScript, Adblock, and Flashblock I won't be using it except perhaps when I need to do a quick check of my Google Calendar appointments.
Now everyone stop complaining about Chrome having no extension! If Chrome is really that good for everything else except has no add-ons, and if you really so sick of getting that noscript/adblock add-on, why not develop one yourself and contribute back to the project?
Am I missing something? The source code of Chromium is available freely under BSD right? I thought open source is all about the freedom to take any source code and modify until it suites you?
"resistance is futile, you will be assimilated"
i think slashdot needs to update its icons
the borg bill gates icon is threatening only circa 1996. microsoft of 2009 is on a real decline
meanwhile, the company of all-domination in 2009 is obviously google. we need a remake of the google icon for slashdot to include the borg cube
and the microsoft icon should be remade with just a non-borg bill gates holding a jar of mosquitoes
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well, mystery solved! I love it when it is that easy :) I guess the American way is slightly lazier... "February second, two-thousand and nine" is 2 fewer words. Is that lazier or more optimized?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
ISO standard is YYYY-MM-DD which I use for documents when I need it. Good for sorting.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
You're missing the point.
Lua isn't built into the browser of almost every computer on the planet.
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
Because not everyone in the world is a programmer?
ok, it was exploitable, but does that mean it was fundamentally a bad idea?
can't we have some type of integration once in a while?
Now everyone stop complaining about Chrome having no extension! If Chrome is really that good for everything else except has no add-ons, and if you really so sick of getting that noscript/adblock add-on, why not develop one yourself and contribute back to the project?
Am I missing something?
Yes. Not all potential users are developers. In fact, I suggest that the majority of potential users are not developers. Telling a random user of web browsers that they need to learn to program to make it do what other free browsers already do is unlikely to convert them. And of those of us who are developers? Well, lets see: shall I spend my free time developing tools for Chrome that are already working perfectly satisfactorily for me in Firefox, or shall I spend my free time doing someting that I think actually needs doing?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
With compilers like GWT [google.com], Pyjamas [pyjs.org], and HotRuby [accelart.jp], I sometimes wonder if JavaScript is starting to emerge as a "portable assembly language" for dynamic languages, the way C is often used by higher-level language compilers. I mean, when it comes down to it JS is basically just hash tables and closures, some of the basic elements required for dynamic language execution.
However, a language is more than hash tables and closures, and even the great similarity between most dynamic languages isn't enough.
For example, in JavaScript all you have are doubles - no integers. That means that if you are using Pyjamas, and you write some math stuff in what appears to be Python, it won't behave like Python. Because of a lot of stuff like this, a straightforward translation of syntax-to-syntax will never work.
Instead, you can do more complicated stuff - like compile code using integers into code that converts back to integers in JavaScript (via rounding, etc.) - but that's not trivial, you'll need to do some of that compiling at runtime, since by looking at the source you don't know what is an integer value and what isn't!
If you want true compatibility with Python, the only solution is really to run a virtual machine for it. You can write such a thing in JavaScript - PyPy have. It's a cool idea, but with obvious drawbacks.
Or, you can do what the Pyjamas etc. people do - be ok with writing the syntax of Python but having the semantics of JavaScript. It's a hybrid language, and you'll always run into corners and bugs that are hard to figure out if you do anything interesting, but stick to conventional code and you might do ok.
if you really so sick of getting that noscript/adblock add-on, why not develop one yourself and contribute back to the project?
Time to develop extensions support and equivalent noscript add-on: six months, full time
Time to complain about lack of extensions in Google Chrome: <10 seconds
Your question is why people don't give up 6 months of their time instead of complaining why Google released a browser without modern features? That's madness. Developers work on open source for free when they feel like it, so unless some developer is really excited about reinventing NoScript they are going to complain instead.
And I'll go even further and turn the tables on you. If you are so sick of people complaining about lack of extensions why haven't you fixed it yet? And even if you are contributing to the project, why are you taking your free time to complain about everybody else instead of working on plugins? The chromium code is right there, so get back to work.
I'm a programmer. But that doesn't mean I don't have better things to do than play with web browsers.
If I wanted to work on yet another solution to an already solved problem, I would write accounting software for fun.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
why not develop one yourself and contribute back to the project?
Because we already have it with firefox.
Lua isn't built into the browser of almost every computer on the planet.
neither is Flash... but it's everywhere.
all we need is NativeClient to suceed just as widely
-Kz-
The combination of your statement and your sig makes it clear that you are one of those people who has to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future. You weren't like that when you were young, were you?
I think it's pretty clear when he means: the OS is becoming little more than the driver for the dumb-terminal you use to access your web-based applications. Stuff like file system management is pointless if all your data lives server-side in web apps.
You can go after his terminology in a display of petty pedantry, but it doesn't change the fact that what he is saying is becoming increasingly the way things are. We may not be there yet. We may not ever get there. But that is certainly where the momentum is.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
'The web is becoming an integral part of the computer and the basic distinction between the OS and the browser doesn't matter very much any more', he says."
Outch. After this quote, I know I'm never going to test Chrome.
There is an absolutely vital distinction. The damn browser will happily run any code embedded in any website I visit. My OS (don't know about yours, but mine) only runs stuff that I explicitly tell it to, usually after explicitly installing it. In fact, I'd prefer even tighter limits on that.
If you don't get that distinction, your security mindset is fucked up.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I strongly disagree. JavaScript is a great language - in fact I think it is one of the best dynamic languages out there. The biggest problem is that 95% of the people who program JavaScript never bother to figure out the right way to use the language. I have heard people who had worked for years programming in JavaScript (actually JScript) claim that the language does not support inheritance, which could not be more untrue. As Douglas Crockford stated in a talk titled "JavaScript: The Good Parts":
If people would actually bother to learn the language (and could be convinced to give up the notion that you can't do OO properly without classes) you'd probably hear a lot less hatred for it.
Also, adding other support for other languages wouldn't do anything to address the biggest difficulty in writing code that runs in a browser, which is the incompatibilities between the different browsers' DOM and CSS implementations.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?