
The Missing Native/Web App Link: Google Says Native Client Almost Ready To Go - pitdesi
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/18/native-client/
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jhuckestein
Soon your browser will be synonymous with your computer. There is a bunch of
projects that work towards that same goal

\- Chrome OS + NaCl (another part of their framework is called pepper) \-
WebOS \- Various JavaScript SDKs (specialized like Game Closure or heavyweight
like Sproutcore or small like backbone)

I always found it inefficient to 'install' software in multiple locations. It
gives you a lot of headaches wrt updates, piracy etc.. I'm excited to see
where this goes!

Notably not participating in the development is Apple, but I have a feeling
they may be working on something like this as well (remember how the iPhone
initially launched with just a JS SDK)

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randall
I'm curious if anyone in the HN community has messed with this, or sees a ton
of potential. My first take is "eww browser plugins v2.0" but I'm not certain
that's an informed opinion.

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orangecat
_My first take is "eww browser plugins v2.0" but I'm not certain that's an
informed opinion._

Same here on both counts. But I'm apparently far less enthusiastic then the
average HNer on the concept of the web being the One True Way for computing.

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bengl3rt
To me the appeal of native code is the ability to load custom drivers for,
surprise, custom hardware. It doesn't seem like this can do that, for
"security" reasons. Can it even talk to hardware APIs (aka open a device
handle and go to town?)

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seltzered
last i checked, you couldn't talk to custom hardware with it. you could do a
html5/webkit/nacl installer-based app with appcelerator titanium and then
modify things to talk to hardware.

I think that's the way forward, but for stuff that pays money I have to ship
so I'm still kinda going with qt/swing/wx for cross-platform or wpf.

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Charuru
Would it be possible to port something like auto cad to chrome with this?

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equark
Yes. I think that's the entire point. Things like games and autocad have
enormous codebases that will never be ported to javascript.

It's still not clear how much an advantage that is though. You can already
share assets via the network while still using a local native application.

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Charuru
Pretty sure this is part of their ChromeOS strategy. It would be impressive
and a big differentiator for a tablet (presumably an x86 tablet will exist at
some point) to be able to run srs bzn programs.

