The first application I wrote completely by myself was in Java, I got my start working on a Java code base. I have a secret love affair with this programming language and I am not ashamed of admitting it, while okay maybe I am. Java has always had a good and bad reputation. The idea of write once run every where is more of a myth than a fact (the amount of porting is more than say porting a Python application to every platform). It took forever to Sun to release Java open source. It's syntax is like an angry sex baby of C and C++. But it was my first programming language and I still have feelings for it, I know I have trouble letting go.
So when I read that Oracle America (Sun Microsystem's new name) is suing Google for copyright infringement on Android I got a little pissed. I always had some respect (or maybe fear) of Oracle (even when they did some stupid things: rebrand Red Hat Enterprise Linux under the name Oracle Unbreakable Linux now called Oracle Enterprise Linux), the owner is a fellow sailer, and they don't have that bad of a database system compared with MySQL. But this law suite has the smell of SCO.
This week two Mozilla Foundation executives, Chairperson
Mitchell Baker and Mike Shaver
Vice President Engineering criticised Google for their
Chrome Frame, an Internet Explorer add-on
that allows the use of the Google Chrome's layout engine instead of using Microsoft's
Trident layout engine.
Mike Shaver is criticising Chrome Frame for loss of security controls and features.
Running Chrome Frame within IE makes many of the browser application’s
features non-functional, or less effective. These include private
browsing mode or their other security controls, features like
accelerators or add-ons that operate on the content area, or even
accessibility support.
And Mitchell Baker is criticising Chrome Frame for the loss of control from the users perceptive.
What rendering engine do you end up using? That depends on the
website now, not on you. And if you end up at a website that makes
use of the Chrome Frame, the treatment of your passwords, security
settings, personalization all the other things one sets in a browser
is suddenly unknown. Will sites you tag or bookmark while browsing
with one rendering engine show up in the other? Because the various
parts of the browser are no longer connected, actions that have one
result in the browser you think you’re using won’t have the same
result in the Chrome browser-within-a-browser.
I agree that the issue of security of Chrome Frame is a big one. But from the perspective
of a web developer this is the greatest thing that Google has released in a long time.
One issue that I run into writing web applications is cross-browser support because most
business management web software (CRMs, ERPs, Accounting, etc.) have be design to work with
IE 6 (and don't work with a modern web browser) it is difficult to tell someone you will
have to open Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome to visit the web page. So I have to spend
almost half my time writing IE support.
One way around this issue is the Firefox add-on IE Tab
(which allows the user to render a web page using the Trident layout engine instead of the Mozilla's Gecko layout engine).
This plugin had a major design flaw it was targeted to the Power User which meant it was
extremely hard to train non-technical people to use the plugin.
Google Chrome Frame has taken the need for the user to switch the Layout Engine and has put
that power into the hands of web developers (which I admit is a bad thing). All I have to
do is add a simple meta tag to the <head> of the base template:
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="chrome=1">
I don't think Google Chrome Frame is an elegant or technically sound solution but it is a
step in the right direction and hopefully it just might make Microsoft and more importantly
business management web software think that maybe they should start support the modern web.
On 21 April 2009 at 7:30 pm I am going to be giving a talk about Google App Engine at the linuxcaffe.
Google App Engine is a platform to building and hosting web applications on Google's infrastructure (which is sometimes called PaaS1). It has a pay-for-what-you-use payment level but anything below 5 million pageviews a month.
- PaaS
- Platform as a Service is the delivery of a computing platform and solution stack as a service.
*.arific.com was a project I started about a year ago to house some of really cool ideas I might have. Most of them haven’t really be published because doing the setup is to much work. Those in a effort to fix this I am moving everything (Email, Websites, Chat, and Project Management) to Google’s Cloud. Currently the only thing that is running on any of my servers is DNS and a redirect from `arific.com` to `www.arific.com`.
I have been play around with Google Chrome doing some of the more resource intensive things. Running three Gmail, MobileMe, RoundCube, and Zimbra all in the same browser window and I would have to say it is incredibly fast. Also the User Interface is awesome; I really like the spartan aspects of the design.
Another cool feature is the fact I can create web based applications (similar to Prism) with just a right click.
I haven’t talked a lot about the mobile platform, mainly because I do not know anything about it, but I thought today would be a good day to add my two cents. Full disclosure: I have an iPhone, Nokia N800 (which runs Linux), and a Symbian OS device,
WordPress just announce 2.6 and it includes support for Google Gears. Nice work WordPress.
This has been somewhat of a tradition, my predictions for the New Year.
Google’s new Doc systems is pretty cool.
You are not lost. You are one link away from your destination.