Hacker News Reader

Comment by tsurantino | Hacker News Reader

This might be a black sheep type of question in a thread like this but here goes.

Microsoft pursued a strategy that enabled people to make web apps in HTML5/Javascript as first class apps in Windows 8. Why is it not being adopted/praised as much as Firefox OS is? Is it because it's Microsoft? Is it because the Win8 HTML5/JS apps are more closed-system-esque than Firefox OS apps will be?

A lot of people denounce Windows because of its lack of app ecosystem. Does everyone think that Firefox OS will have a better chance at solving this problem and thus deserves praise for creating an ecosystem exclusively for web-based apps?

View on HN

I think it is a very fair question. The first reason I want Mozilla to win here is that they don't want my data. They are pushing for stronger privacy in firefox, and although I love Chrome I don't think Google can ever support real browser privacy.

I am a fan of JS on windows 8 and winphone 8. However, I own a win7 phone and got burned by their non-backwards compatible upgrade to 8. So I have no love for MS, although I am a big fan of the tiled UI.

I think that FFOS will provide a better place where I can put together an app in Linux with vim. I don't want to install eclipse to write for Android, buy a macbook to write an iOSx app or install visual studio.

I hope that FFOS can be an easy to fiddle playground for me. We'll see.

You should be able to make a Firefox OS app with Gedit or any text editor, or any set of browser tools (Firefox desktop browsers have a good set, and even a FFos emulator). I'm quite excited for Firefox OS myself, if I could find a decent turn-by-turn navigation web-app I'd ditch Android...

>I don't want to install eclipse to write for Android

Well you don't need eclipse to write for Android

That is true, but what is the command line tooling like for java? I build java all day inside god-awful IDEs. The last time I tried compiling Java on the command line it was really a lot of work.

I suppose there is some maven support for building Android. An even better reason to hope for the best for FFOS.

Android also has decent command line tool support and a build system based on Ant. I'm not a huge fan of ant, but the default setup works all right and is extensible. I've mostly managed to stay inside Emacs for Android development.

That is a good thing to know. Maybe I should give it another look.

there is an official gradle support (still a work in progress): http://tools.android.com/tech-docs/new-build-system/user-gui... .

In all sincerity please dont refer to Java and Android in the same sentence.

As far as Google is concerned, Java does not run on Android and you might be bearing witness to something that Google disclaims.

They also just switched over to IntelliJ, didn't they?

Yes indeed. http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/studio.html

The API collection known as WebAPI (https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebAPI) is what allows open web apps to access the hardware and some phone features such as contacts. Mozilla is working alongside with W3C and other standards bodies to make these APIs standards for all vendors. This is a different agenda than the one MS is pushing with its HTML based offerings. Mozilla is striving to make the mobile web an open ecosystem for all vendors to benefit and most important for all users. Remember "Values over Profit"

> Is it because the Win8 HTML5/JS apps are more closed-system-esque than Firefox OS apps will be?

Yes, basically. At least for me. It comes down to trust. I trust Mozilla that they want to do good for the community. I trust Microsoft first and foremost wants to make money for their shareholders and only after that for the community. This is fine, they're a for-profit company. It's just that doing good for your shareholders doesn't always lead to doing good to the community.

Not to mention Microsoft doesn't exactly have the greatest of reputations when it comes to vendor lock-in issues.

They are complete Bds. I am still very unhappy about what they did with the win7 phone. I feel like such a sucker. I was so enthusiastic about the interface, I showed to all my workmates and tried to convince them it was better than their phones (with little success). And then they went and left me with a ghost town of a phone. I felt quite foolish after that.

I took it all a bit personally :)

The problem is Joe Billy who buys a random phone (who is also 90% of the marketplace) does not care at all if the applications he is using are made with HTML5/CSS/JS, Lua, C#, C++, C Triangle, Delphi, Dolphin, Chicken Horse, what ever. All they care about is...

1. Does it work. 2. Does it work well (ie fast, do what it is suppose to do). 3. Does it not cost anything (or if it does cost anything, an amount which is appropriate). 4. Do his friends have it.

That's really all they care about. At the end of the day, nobody cares if it's Firefox OS, Android, iPhone. So long as they can do what they want to do at a cost they can afford. Their friends have a similar device or allow transplatform communication. And they can get all them fancy stuff their friends show them (ie amazing apps, themes, custom phone skins, etc).

The people who care about the other stuff don't make up most of the market.

And that is something Microsoft as well as Google, and Apple get. The goal is to have a cool phone, with stuff that is cool, at a cool price. That's why people like Microsoft pay app developers to port their "cool apps" to MS App Store. As well as give "celebrities" free phones. All in the name of coolness!

Mozilla's openness wins it alot of praise. Not to mention, their technology truly has changed the web (Javascript anyone?), while MS has held back web development (they still don't support WebGL). With Firefox OS any web app is a FFOS app, with MS you need to go through their closed store, or their half-baked browser...

Firefox OS doesn't need an app ecosystem, they just need developers to make good web apps. Hence their tools like Javascript, Emscripten, and Asm.js... I've been testing the Aurora browser on Android, and it's already impressive how well interactive web apps work on their browser, I could definitely see Firefox OS taking off...

  > while MS has held back web development

On the other hand you can also argue, that Microsoft were web apps pioneers. There should be people who still remember DHTML demos of the IE4 era—it was the time when Netscape has fallen behind. One can also argue, that the real break-through for web apps was Gmail, so let's not forget what was at the core of it: the thing later named AJAX, which was non-standart invention by Microsoft only later standardised. It is not all black and white. But I still do think that (mobile) web apps are an attempt to turn three-legged table into a tricycle. Sure, you can try and eat your soup with a knife, but why, just because you carry your pocket knife wherever you go? Af for Firefox OS I doubt it will get much traction. It may appeal for the devs who think web tech is superior to everything (which makes me doubt they even know the tech well enough), but for general users… meh. Most important I think Mozilla lost its focus, or at least shifted it somewhere else. When Firefox (Phoenix) started they did the right thing. I attribute this to Blake Ross, and seems like FF lost the direction and shifted to politics instead of making the best browser when Blake moved on.

It's most likely because Mozilla makes things open source, and Microsoft doesn't usually.

I agree that this pretty much seems like another Windows Phone, that won't really make huge competition for iOS or Android devices. I hope I'm wrong though because I hate Java.

> Microsoft pursued a strategy that enabled people to make web apps in HTML5/Javascript as first class apps in Windows 8.

That by itself is a concept absolutely no one has any problem with.[1]

The problems people have are either with Windows 8 itself and/or Metro sucking, and in some cases seeing parts of it as the first step in turning a previously-open ecosystem into an iOS-style walled garden.

[1] Well, OK, I think JavaScript is a scourge on par with PHP, bubonic plague, and small children, so I guess I do have a problem, but it's not one anyone else cares about.

First and foremost, it's Microsoft, so yes, I'm afraid that's reason enough to shun Windows 8. Fool me twice and all that. That aside, the fact is that we need source code, with an FLOSS license, for the full stack. Yes, it matters, otherwise we'd be happy enough with Android.

Judging from past sabotages by Microsoft, I really, really doubt their "HTML5/JS" apps will be portable/cross-platform (eg, just wait until they start "deprecating" standard functions in favor of their "safe" Windows specific library calls).

Thus far most of the windows 8 hardware either sucks, or it costs too much. I really wanted a windows tablet until Samsung's ativ turned out to be defective,windows rt turned out to be useless, and the surface was released with a keyboard that requires a table to use.

This is because their JS implementation is a wrapper around WinRT rather than anything close to what anyone else is doing. It also isn't very JavaScripty. WinRT is a particularly odd creation.

Plus Windows 8 RT isn't selling.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com