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On Tuesday 13 January 2009 08:42, Neil Williams wrote: > 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.) > > ;-) The only things that stop javascript 'being' an OS are MS (especially) and Adobe. So its quite amusing it doesn run flash - which is just part of what JS would be if MS and Adobe hadnt 'assisted' in developing the standard. And if you think PHP,ASP,AJAX, perl and JS are a horrible mix then I'd have to agree. What would be nice is PHP being replaced by server side JS2/JIT, ditto for ASP and Perl , JS2/JIT in the browser then AJAX would be a piece of cake and then the net would be your OS. You'd be writing server and client (browser) apps in the same language. It would be bliss! But then Adobe and MS dont want YOU to enjoy your computer. Tom te tom te tom -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html