

WebOS 2.0 will include node.js - jmtulloss
http://developer.palm.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2109#services

======
greenlblue
I really wish palm phones and the webOS had more consumer demand because among
all the smartphone platforms webOS is the most elegant of the bunch.

~~~
sjs
I got to develop for and use a Pre at a previous job and it's subpar. It feels
kind of cheap, the screen is too small (physically, resolution is fine), the
hardware keyboard is worse than some software keyboards, and it's a little bit
geeky to be mainstream. A phone shouldn't have modifier keys, imo.

That said I think webOS itself is great. Put it on some good hardware and I'd
seriously consider buying one.

~~~
Kadin
> A phone shouldn't have modifier keys, imo.

You're entitled to your opinion, I guess, but every phone made with a QWERTY
keyboard has had modifier keys.

The Blackberry has Shift, Alt and Sym; Nokia has shift plus an blue numeric
shift, and the iPhone has Shift and "123".

I'm honestly not sure how you'd even have a phone without modifier keys;
there's just no good way of cramming enough buttons in the right layouts onto
the phone without them. At bare minimum, people want upper and lower-case
QWERTY for text entry, the telephone-style 123/456/789/0 number pad for phone
numbers, plus a reasonable number of easily-accessible symbols. Even with an
on-screen keyboard, I don't think you're going to do it without modifier keys
or something like them, and I think you'd be hard pressed -- given the
familiarity users have with modifier keys -- to do better.

If we're kvetching, though, why don't more phones allow you to enter phone
numbers as alphanumeric, and do the conversion to numbers behind-the-scenes? I
shouldn't have to fire up some 3rd party app in order to dial "1800 GO FEDEX"
... I should be able to type that right in like any other number and have the
phone figure out that G=4, O=6, etc. The Blackberry lets you hold down Alt and
type, but that's awkward and doesn't let you easily recognize a miskey. It
seems trivial, yet no manufacturer seems inclined to fix it.

~~~
sjs
Well, I meant modifier keys that require holding more than one key at once. I
feel that's a bit different than shift on the iPhone, but I'll concede that
technically even the iPhone's shift is a modifier. My issue is then with
simultaneous modifiers (for lack of a better term).

I dislike Nokia's blue-number thing and I doubt I'd like BlackBerry's alt and
sym since they sound like the Pre's orange and sym. iPhone's shift and "123"
are just easier to use than my n810's shift and blue shift, and easier to use
than my old HTC's shift, blue shift, control, etc.

It certainly does come down to preference. No argument there.

As a geek if I find something cumbersome or awkward I can almost guarantee
that most of my less geeky friends & family will feel the same way about it
though. I think it's a legitimate drawback to the Pre's tiny keyboard, and I
don't even have large fingers.

------
kloncks
What Palm really needs (and what I really wish it had) is a non-phone device
carrying WebOS

It's unbelievable how important and how big the iPod Touch (it's 40% of all
iOS devices) is for the iOS platform.

~~~
cryptoz
The iPod touch is about $3000 cheaper than the iPhone, and that's probably why
it's important.

(In Canada, you probably pay $80-$90/month locked to a three year contract,
which is around $3000)

~~~
jackowayed
Because so many people in the market for iTouches don't own a cell phone?

I agree that the cost is the reason, but saying that it's $3k cheaper is
seriously misrepresenting things. The marginal cost of getting an Android
phone over a normal one is $30/month for the data plan, so $720 in America and
I guess $1080 if you're in Canada (that sucks, btw). And then you can probably
subtract $50 or $100 or so because you'd probbly pay a bit more for an
unsubsidized iTouch-oid than for the subsidized phone.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
For me, it's relevant because I'd like to learn how to build apps for WebOS
and Windows Phone 7, but I make my living developing iPhone apps, and I'm not
about to sign a 2 year contract with another cell phone provider for the
privilege of building for a platform that may never amount to anything.

~~~
ryanwatkins
You can buy a non-contract device at a small discount via the developer
program. <http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/developer-phones.html>

------
qeorge
Dumb question: does this mean WebOS will also include V8 (Chrome's JS engine)?

~~~
substack
I wonder how Google, with its competing Android platform must feel about this.
That is to say, are chrome and android for that matter more like the Nexus 1:
designed to push other companies forward, or more like standalone products of
their own? Or maybe Google is being even more forward thinking about it and
realizing that they can derive competitive advantage from both scenarios.

~~~
bruceboughton
This is Chromium's stated goal: "Join us in an open-source browser project to
help move the web forward" <http://code.google.com/chromium/>

~~~
substack
Yes but Android is a competitor to WebOS, so I was thinking more about how
Google "feels" about its technologies being used in competitor's products.

~~~
sprout
What search engine does WebOS ship with as default?

Also, as a followup, what mapping program does WebOS ship with?

~~~
drewp
the google ones

------
arst
I don't know much about node.js but have always heard about it in a server-
side context - does anyone know what role node is going to play in the webOS
ecosystem?

~~~
colonelxc
(correct me if I'm wrong, HNers)

In WebOS, "apps" are written in html/css/js, so it makes sense to have the
capability of running a standalone js engine like node for GUI-less apps
(background services).

~~~
Setsuna
I'm curious, can you provide some examples?

------
saikat
There are few ways in which this is not exciting. Hopefully this means even
more momentum for an open source project that already has a ton of it.

~~~
bradly
Can you explain the ways in which this is not exciting?

~~~
kenjackson
Bradly, I think he meant that this is really exciting. There aren't many ways
that its not exciting. Hence there are very few ways it's not exciting. And
then omitted the "very" in the sentence.

I don't think he meant "there are 3 ways this is not exciting".

------
ebiester
I always thought the vast majority of apps that are bought are games. Palm
hasn't shown how they are going to compete in this arena...

~~~
joshsharp
The PDK uses the same tech as iPhone apps, they've already shown it's trivial
to develop a game for iOS and port it over. That makes them much more
competitive than Android, and already webOS has many more games available.

~~~
ebiester
<\- hasn't been paying attention, apparently. It's time to look at the Palm
again, it seems!

------
Setsuna
Think about these features from a Tablet POV.

------
c00p3r
I can't believe, but they finally got it and release c/c++ development kit,
which means you can develop something really useful, instead of html/js BS.

~~~
alnayyir
Try to avoid negativity that doesn't contribute to the on-going conversation.
(Etiquette here: <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>)

Instead you could've said something to the effect of, "I'm excited about the
C/C++ development kit as I've wanted to work on a project that does X and
needed C/C++ because of Y."

Cheers!

~~~
c00p3r
Thank you for an advice.

But it isn't a negativity at all. It is my opinion. I'd said long ago, that
making apps in Javascript for a phone is a ridiculous idea, and was nothing
but a marketing illusion (they will tell you that Javascript is the most
widely used language in the world just because any schoolchild wrote something
with getElementById at least once.) But when you look at this approach from an
system engineering point of view, you probably will see, that it is artificial
abstraction level, with enormous overhead, and it wasn't designed for this
purpose. (What's good for a PC cannot be pushed into ARM-world. That is why
Flash for Android is a failure and why Android also released a C++ DK. ARM
systems still cannot afford the overhead of all those artificial layers, such
as Flash or other popular PC stuff.

Of course, with V8 which is producing an optimized native code for an ARM cpu,
situation will look a little better, but still, you need an efficient resource
management and control (think that there is no swap).

So, clang++ is the obvious answer (that is why Apple spend money to it), but
ordinary getElementById developer cannot understand and code memory
management. That's why all marketers are trying to push garbage-collecting
artificial blobs.

The good side is that if you learn how to program you can use appropriate
tools (C/C++).

