Google Abandoning Gears

harrymcc noted a story talking about what might be the end of Google Gears. The concept has always been interesting, but it seems that Google is beginning to think of Gears as more of a proof of concept, and that focus will shift to HTML5, which has the same functionality.

Comments

Summary is not accurate

[yakatz]

Saying that Google is abandoning Gears is not 100% accurate as it has bad connotations.

Google created Gears to fill the void until browser makers would implement HTML5. Now that they are doing so, Gears is being retired.

Re:Summary is not accurate

[TheRaven64]

Exactly. HTML 5 is being deployed piecemeal, and Gears uses the HTML 5 features when they're available, falling back to its own functionality when it isn't. When all that Gears is doing is delegating functionality to the native HTML 5 implementation, it's pointless and just adds a layer of indirection that slows everything down.

Gears is out and works now. HTML 5 is starting to be widely deployed and all of the major browser manufacturers are backing it (MS announced IE9 will support it). When HTML 5 is universal, there will be no point in Gears. It never had a long-term future, it was just a prototype. Several of the HTML 5 features are lifted directly from Gears, so saying Google are abandoning Gears is no more interesting than saying Microsoft are abandoning Windows 95.

Re:Summary is not accurate

[Just Some Guy]

Except for those people who are still using IE 6 or Netscape 4.

That's their problem. The cost-benefit ratio of supporting those ancient systems (and enabling the defective IT departments that stick with them) just isn't worth it anymore. Let them have their Geocities-era sites and funky rendering while the rest of us enjoy the last decade's worth of progress.

makes sense

[fedorfedor]

Gears was a smart way to get important new features into stagnant older browsers (we're looking at you, IE...) and implemented far more quickly than any standards process allows. Now that those features are in the HTML5 standard, there's no reason to require gears. Until the next round of feature-adding, of course...

HTML 5

[jo42]

Makes one wonder how much of this "HTML 5 will do this", "HTML 5 will do that" is hype or wishful thinking. Past experience has shown great disappointment in all this hyperbole...

Re:HTML 5

[Transfinite]

from actually working with this stuff. Quite alot already.

Re:HTML 5

[slim]

HTML 5 does exactly what it says it does.

Dive into HTML 5 tells you what that is, and whether your browser supports it.

It's up to developers to apply it. Google is doing so.

Re:BLOAT

[bunratty]

You're right. I think we've all taken the wrong approach with huge, bloated standard libraries. Let all developers write all code from scratch. Need to output an integer, just write the code that turns the integer into a stream of characters, then pass that stream of characters into your homebrew I/O functions, which pass them off to your custom built drivers. There's no need for all languages to have this functionality! It just makes developers have to code around the differences and bugs in each runtime!