

ActiveShell: A Shell for the Web - inimino
http://inimino.org/~inimino/blog/shell_for_the_web

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oinksoft
_"This is an opportunity to design a better shell for the development
environment of the future, which I believe will be the Web itself. Consumer
computing devices are becoming less general and open, designed for consumption
more than creation. Those born today may grow up without access to the kinds
of flexible tools that sparked so many young people's interest in programming
during the era of desktop computing. Bringing developer tools to the Web means
bringing the full power of general-purpose computing to a new generation."_

I think that this observation is false. There is a recent proliferation of
closed devices (iphone, etc), but consumer desktops and laptops abound, and a
consumer is no more prohibited nor discouraged from installing an open
operating system than they were in the past. The Fallacies of Distributed
Computing aren't going anywhere, and dedicated machines will be with us for a
long time: The convenience and privacy limitations of computing dependent on a
network make it plain that programmers will be using local machines for a very
long time.

inimino (a good guy) specializes in JavaScript, so I can understand why he
finds an idea like this interesting. But it's a pipe dream, no pun intended.

I can see the value of this sort of thing as a JavaScript library for
combining web services abiding by some packet standard.

~~~
programnature
I think a better formulation of the same concept is the following: Web is the
new lowest common denominator.

The lowest common denominator used to be the shell. The one thing you can
always depend on being there, and with well-understood standards.

Obviously people realized the benefits of more sophisticated graphical UIs,
but without one standard UI framework across platforms, you couldn't have a
replacement for the general purpose shell.

Web technology now provides that standard UI framework, and is
programmable/extensible by a vast number of devs without learning some
platform-specific or esoteric UI framework. Its a bonus that it also runs on
devices that don't have shell access.

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zokier
Is this just an idea, or do you have an actual usable implementation? Sounds
interesting but feels like something I'd need to see before believing.

~~~
inimino
A bit of both. I have a working prototype, but it is not ready for serious
use. In the next post I'm planning to have screenshots and work through some
small practical task while explaining some of the features.

~~~
rickard
The github repo at <https://github.com/inimino/ActiveShell> looks pretty
empty... It would be nice to have even a non-"serious" version to play with,
since by your description, it would be pretty cool and useful.

~~~
bodyloss
I agree, would love to have a little play. even if it is very much a prototype

~~~
rickard
Oh, look - he did an initial commit! I'll play with it on the bus tonight. :)

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ale55andro
this reminds me of a recent google effort to add a terminal emulator within
the chrome browser : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3344678>

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Edoc
For some ideas, see: <http://www.rebol.com/>

