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Benjamin M. A'Lee wrote: > On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 10:51:49AM +0100, tom wrote: > >> You don't need to use either Java or .NET or any other 'VM' type approach. >> > > I don’t think I said you did. My point was just that .NET is Microsoft’s > attempt to get in on Sun’s market. > > >> Its technically quite easy to set up JavaScript/Browser to call the >> libraries on your machine to do all the things you like to do - how else >> do you think Flash and Silverlight work? >> > > >> The only reason why we don't is >> because companies have either together or singularly prevented the >> standards orgs from agreeing on standards to do this, and by providing >> their own 'solutions' helped redirect effort away from the optimal (for >> the user and in most cases the developer) solutions. >> > > What do you mean we don’t do it? You’ve just said that this is how Flash > and Silverlight work. These aren’t standards, but they’re widely used > anyway (unfortunately). > Things like flash and silverlight run through plugins/modules for particular browsers - they're programmed in at browser level and not 'web' level - they talk to the browser api not the web standard level. > >> In My ideal world we'd have had an Object Oriented JavaScript with JIT >> for the browser and compiler for system side to link in client side >> stuff in a standards compliant way - through mime types for video etc. >> I'd also like the same JS engine for sever side on apache (for me) so I >> could stick to one language for programming, and one operating system >> (i.e. no VM's) for doing 'other' work. >> > > Not really feasible, as you want a limited environment for the > client-side language (otherwise you end up with braindamage like > ActiveX), and on the server-side you want it to be somewhat less limited > (being able to access files, for example, would be useful). I’m not > saying that you shouldn’t use the same language, just not necessarily > the same engine. > I think you really mean its a security issue - you run ANY 'plugin' you have the same issues as with activex: anything the browser runs is suspect and has the permissions of the browser (think corrupt jpg)- again these are better properly sorted at standards level if possible and in sandpits otherwise. But what I meant to say was if someone offers me a flash video stream I want to be able to play it through my choice of (web standard capable) videoplayer and not be forced to install/upgrade flash or mess about trying to fool the page into playing through mplayer of something which always fails on the next site..... > As I understand it, though, there’s no reason you can’t run javascript > through spidermonkey on the server, with maybe some hacking around to > hook it into apache. > > Personally, I wouldn’t use javascript more than I had to (I’m currently > refactoring our web application to move as much processing as possible > from javascript on the client to python on the server). Javascript isn’t > a great language to begin with, and it’s hampered even more by the wide > use of shoddy implementations (Microsoft again…). > JS is a bad language - it could (still) be a really great language - go see what MS and Adobe killed off! You can run JS in apache - someone's done it, but it needs a few extensions to make it useful at this level - see above... 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