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[LUG] Javascript is not an OS

 

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090109-the-pres-got-mojo-a-developer-speaks-about-palms-new-sdk.html

"The [WebOS] name is appropriate; all the software running on the device
is a combination of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. "

I was really quite interested in the new Palm device until I read this
bit. How can anyone entrust the entire OS to Javascript?? Come on,
Palm, that's not an OS! HTML and CSS are static so the only part of the
code that can actually respond to user input would appear to be
Javascript. I mean, duh? On a phone? Javascript is bad enough on a
basic router. Even with some form of reimplemented PHP/ASP or mangled
perl interpreter, it's not an OS. Even perl and PHP5 require some
kind of compiled code based on libc6 - there has to be a layer of
non-free code somewhere that supports the SDK and it looks like Palm are
not letting anyone see that code. (Yes, that *should* worry you - you
can't make Javascript secure unless you know how the underlying
browser/engine works.)

(Oh, and just to make things worse, the non-free WebOS doesn't yet
support Flash. Hmmm - could that be because you can't run
Flash inside Javascript? There has to be some real code somewhere but
Palm aren't making that part of the SDK.)

Yes, it sounds like Palm have re-invented a horrible mix of PHP, ASP,
AJAX, perl and Javascript and called it "an operating system".

Run away!

On the upside, the device is a normal armel machine (and really quite
powerful as these things go) so I suppose the real question is how much
internal storage the European specification devices will contain and
whether we can fit Emdebian onto them. 75Mb is all I need! (Well, maybe
100Mb with all the phone stuff.)

;-)

-- 


Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

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