[cap-talk] browsers as operating system

[Jed Donnelley]

At 01:25 AM 9/11/2008, David-Sarah Hopwood wrote:
>John Carlson wrote:
> > I think we have to start thinking about web browsers as operating
> > systems.

Of course.  It seems clear to me that's Google's intent.  To dominate
the browser "operating system" platform for applications the way
Microsoft dominates the desktop operating system platform today.

> > The have multiple processes.  They should support any
> > language coming over the the network "in rendering engine space",
> > whether it be HTML, XML, CSS, XSLT, XPath, JavaScript, ECMAScript,
> > ActionScript, Java, E, Joe-E, C#, C++, C, etc.
>
>Web browsers are complicated enough just supporting HTML, XML, CSS,
>XSLT, XPath, JavaScript, Java, and various plug-ins.
>
>Why on earth would we want to make them more complicated by adding
>E, C#, C++, and C, before fixing the existing problems? Especially
>given that C++ and C are not even memory-safe?

I think John is suggesting (John?) that the browser support arbitrary
binary code so that any source language can be supported.  If Web
applications run in separate processes (Chrome) then it seems to me
this is certainly the direction the technology is heading in.

--Jed  http://www.webstart.com/jed-signature.html