Raja Bose wrote:
Saar that run-time you are talking about
is the browser engine - its not some "special" native run-time developed for HTML5 apps. What you strat-e-jee types are refering to as the browser is actually just some UI chrome on top of the browser engine (URL bar, reload button etc) -
that UI chrome is not what is known in the trade as a browser. So yes, HTML5 apps run in the browser onlee (basically it is called a chrome-less browser). Trust me, I know this 1st hand and not thru strat-e-jee giri onlee
Nope. A browser is lot , lot more than a layout / rendering engine such as Webkit /Gecko/ the IE whatever from Mickeysoft etc.
In addition to the UI /skins on top of the basic rendering, it actually provides a space for multiple processes to execute (Chrome for eg, has an individual process per tab), has to do all the process management, scheduling and all that stuff, security, an environment for plugins to execute, etc, etc.. stuff that an OS is designed to do anyways, and do far better.
It is sort of another OS "lite" built on top of the OS, on which programs execute. Sort of like the Web Application Servers on the Server side , only this is on the "client" side. Of course, this sort of layering, especially in an environment like mobile, severely constrained in power and form factor will see you build a brick with crappy performance and not the nice ultra thin sheets of machined aluminum with crisp sharp performance that Mahdi brought out! And guess where all the Moojahids are headed and plonking their money !
The run time I am talking about is not some airy fairy thing. But sort of like the common run times like IBM'S LE-370 (
LE-370.pdf ! In fact, I always maintain that anything that the nanha munnas are talking about in Computing (virtualization, multi processer, multi node, grid, massively parallel, anything you can think of ) is just a rehash with glitzy Silly-Con Valley packaging of what IBM had already running with some 99.9999999999% uptime and reliability since the 1960s! For eg, think of the
.Net Framework and the
Common Language Runtime that all the Moojahids are going hoo-haa and rah -rah.. It is a Mickeysoft version of the LE-370 , with more overheads of course, because of the Java like Bytecode step . Note, there you can do away with that if you really want to cut that out.
So if you use a Firefox or Fennec browser what is actually doing the Javascript and HTML for you is the Gecko browser engine. Similarly if you are using Chrome/ChromeOS, what you are actually using is the Chrome version of Webkit. When you run HTML5 apps, these browser engines are the run-time - there is no separate run-time for HTML5 apps and the overheads for HTML5 apps are no different than the browser's overhead.
The WebKit /Gecko/Mickesoft equivalent whatever, is just a rendering engine that is usually shared across multiple programs (browser, email, other stand alone apps.. whatever), sort of packaged into dynamically loaded objects or whatever the new fangled renaming the Mickeysofts and Silly-Con valleyists have come up with such as DLL or something. Now that can pretty well be served up as a part of the basic OS as a service , maybe as part of the windowing tool kit and that can go native with common runtime (equivalent of LE370 / .net CLR or whatever) and be far more integrated into the basic OS and closer to the hardware.
The problem with the "all browser oriented and running on top of the brower" (like running on App Server for instance) , is just so much overhead on something that is inherently less efficient than the OS fo these sorts of things anyways.. All okay in the desktop /laptop world, where Intel squeezes more transistors with an even finer process and Samsung /whoever crashes prices of memory even further and Mickey comes up with an even more bloated software (okay, mickey seems to me cutting bloat with Windoze versions after Vista) and all this crashes twice a day, with
ONE user on a machine with processing power and memory orders of magnitude more than a 1960s/70s machine that ran for literally 30/40 years non stop with all the razz mattaz supporting thousands of users ! Oh well, this truly is progress ,
oops Plogress!
And oh, I forgot to add. Just look at the http kind of stateless protocol, how you do transaction processing with that stateless protocol with the Web-App Servers of today, the multi threaded nature of that beast, etc, and look up CICS with it's similar stateless protocol, the way you do transaction processing there , the multi threading and how it scales into thousands of transactions per second and the similar boast by the AppServers, and tell me what is the effective net progress , since 1970?
Nope. What you see in the video is a complete fully functional HTML5 based mobile device with smooth UX. I wonder why strat-e-jee types are confused about Flash run-time versus a browser engine (the latter is basically the app run-time for HTML5 apps)
They are 2 totally different things except perhaps in Powerpoint slides
Well, strat-e-jee types sometimes powerpoint slides in addition to looking and feeling slick, sometimes are right on the money. A rendering/browser engine is not a Browser (like I said earlier HTML5 != Browser ) which is a larger thing and running bloatware /plug in s on top of that browser in a mobile world, like you do on a desktop will see you making bricks, while Mahdi conquers the world with devices that are slick ,crisp and fast and are thin as sheets of machined aluminium
). All browser engines have their roots in rendering and layout engines but that is not the case any more so when one says a WebKit engine or a Gecko engine, they are no longer referring to just the rendering and layout parts onlee.
. Plus I have publicly blasted superficially informed strat-e-jee folks in person for much less infraction during strat-e-jee/bidi meetings 
, its just that I havent heard any of them hear how internal cost-cutting (through a shared services model) is making life difficult for them on a day to day basis, the ones I have only heard about are on the usual stuff like lack of resources, bonuses, long hours and other misc ones like transportation.