The MossyBlog Times Archives 2007 - 2009 : Google Gears

JavaScript brings balance back to the force.

scbarnes — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 06:31:24 GMT

It's funny how you sometimes take something so simple for granted until you one day suddenly realise the answer has been staring you in the face all along.

JavaScript is that answer,it's now become this language widely used, mostly understood and pushed to the point where i doubt there is anything left undiscovered about it. It's now become the bridge between disparate technologies from most of the major software giants (Microsoft, Google, Adobe etc). It's being used in a number of creative ways and it doesn't appear to be stopping either.

You could use JavaScript to write a Windows Vista SideBar Gadget, Yahoo! Widget and whatever the next piece of technology of this kind can be inserted here.

You could use JavaScript to bridge the gap between Adobe AIR and Adobe Acrobat, to empower electronic forms to carryout out tasks dictated by Adobe AIR (via FLEX / AJAX).

You could use JavaScript to control and manipulate Microsoft Silverlight XAML, shape and bend it to suite your will, using it to hold the fort while we build and produce the application framework that's yet to come.

You could use JavaScript to write data to your hard-drive through the use of Google Gears.

You could use JavaScript to hijack other peoples HTML code and make it do some interesting things, much like how I don't have FTP access to this blogs code, but I can bring-in JavaScript to manipulate the DOM should I wish.

You could use JavaScript to fuse two competing technologies (Flash, Silverlight etc) together, and force them to bow to you, the developers will should you so desire.

There is much you can do with JavaScript that typically it was never imagined when it was first produced. It's quite a unique language to admire and utilize, as it's got one thing going for it that we all are somewhat envious about.

Everyone simply knows it. It's been around for far to long, hasn't had any changes really to it and combined with HTML + Browser Agents it can be quite a powerful ally to have.

I have new found respect for JavaScript the more I see it being used in variety of ways. It just keeps getting stronger and stronger, yet no actual changes are made to it?

JavaScript is what keeps the RIA dream alive today, so we can build better tomorrow!

We gave birth to RIA.

scbarnes — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 23:32:45 GMT

Adobe's Mike Downey and I were throwing comments back and forth on twitter.com this morning, it was derived from Brad Becker (ex Flash Product guy @ Macromedia and now Microsoft staffer) post on RIA.

Brad posted this a few months ago when JD @ Adobe got all fired up over Rich Interactive Applications vs Rich Internet Applications. Adobe will argue until they are blue in the face that Microsoft are attempting to Hijack the term RIA and .. blah blah blah.

Honestly, whom named RIA (Microsoft or Adobe) has become irrelevant. If you look at the history of RIA overall, it's something that we have always hinted at but never could quite get there.

VRML for example would have to by far my earliest memory of the "RIA" concept. You have a rich 3D world in which you can interact with, but of course in the late 1990's there was only so much you could do in terms of client-to-server side interaction.

In 2000, I remember seeing Erik's attempt at WebOS.com, which was by far the earliest iteration of RIA / AJAX I've seen. You may know of Erik today as one of the brains behind Google Gears, WebFX and Bindows.NET

I was working on Billabong's website's in 2000, when I first started to use Flash + Remote Servers, but it was with Flash 5 and all I could do was bring in variables remotely via PARAM or URL string. RIA was my intent but couldn't execute.

I've been on the Macromedia ride ever since, but like all the previous iterations of "RIA" it just hasn't been executed. There have been success stories of RIA working today, but it hasn't changed the landscape and I say this as if it has we wouldn't be seeing AJAX. There is no need for AJAX if "FLASH" RIA were to succeed? one cancels out the other and many have argued this case.

Silverlight and Flash Player are advanced, no question in this but both Adobe and Microsoft can't own RIA because it's realistically an idea or belief that was first formed many years ago and whilst Adobe will have you believe they are the founders of RIA, they simply built a campaign around it.

It's like saying AJAX is owned by Jesse James Garrett or he invented AJAX? (he did? I'm sure Google and Microsoft both had a large role to play in this, Microsoft with XmlHttpRequest and Google in its mainstream use).

We the community are the ones whom own RIA, not Microsoft or Adobe. They simply enable and market the idea of what RIA should be.

Selling Snake oil to the masses.

scbarnes — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 04:39:24 GMT

It's interesting to see folks I've meet online flood my IM's, Email Accounts etc with "Did you see Google Gears, how cool is this!!"

I got the same reaction from JavaFX, Apollo, Silverlight and so on. I often look at these things with one eye brow raised, and I do this not to attack anything not Microsoft specific, but I'm trying to figure out what's in it for Google. It's my immediate reaction, as a company of that size would not sit on something like this and then unload onto the world without a reason.

Let's take a look at what Google Gears expected to do:

A local server, to cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) without needing to contact a server
A database, to store and access data from within the browser
A worker thread pool, to make web applications more responsive by performing expensive operations in the background.

My initial thoughts are "wow, offline / online connectivity, that's good!". Yet then I started to think about applications I would typically write with such ingredients. Let's assume I wrote a simple Calendar Tool, where I can plan out my month while I'm on the plane (as that's were we all seem to do the most work - never been able to unfold a laptop on a plane, except business class but anyway). I punch in all my details, and it stores them locally.

I then arrive into a network friendly zone, hook my laptop up and it magically synchronizes the data for me right? What it doesn't? I still have to code?.. well.. that's not what the brochure said? (Hey they could very well pull it off, but at the moment it's oversold, over hyped and not enough detail)

I'm sure there will be positive business cases found for it? but what is it really bringing to the table and how many developers are sitting around today going "If only I had occasionally connected client status on laptops! - boy I can't tell you how annoying that is". Usually when they do, it's got a lot more complexity associated to it, and typically there would be much bigger and bolder collision algorithms associated to it.

Do I think Google Gears sucks? nope!, I just simply scratch my head ponder what the hell is in it for Google firstly, secondly me and lastly how will this help me get more runs on the board with development? (especially with Tools interoperability).

Adobe Apollo (YAB) absorbing it sounds positive for Adobe but it kind of looks like a PR push to bolster Apollo's name by cashing in on Google's fame (that's the sceptic within me talking though).

It sounds like Snake Oil in parts :)