D could catch this wave: web assembly

[Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d]

On 06/21/2015 05:07 AM, Joakim wrote:
 >
 > Simply dumping more features on top of the old web stack
 > is a recipe for failure.
 >

Meh, it seems to be working for them so far ;) But I agree, it's a bad 
approach, and hopefully will finally collapse.


 > Prefetching and caching is used by _all_ app runtimes, whether Java or
 > Objective-C.  They don't change the fact that the web frontend is much
 > slower and difficult to work with.
 >

Plus, on the web, doing stuff in the background tends to have a much 
bigger negative impact on responsiveness than it does outside the web.


 > Very responsive because they're made up of trivially simple line art,
 > perhaps.
 >

I happen to like that aesthetic style, really. :) But of course an image 
format needs to be more general.


 > On Sunday, 21 June 2015 at 07:38:02 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
 >> On 06/21/2015 01:42 AM, Joakim wrote:
 >>
 >> No, there's more to a desktop/laptop than just processing power and
 >> keyboard/monitor/mouse. The mobile devices are also (currently) shit
 >> at storage space (not to mention virtual memory) and peripherals. And
 >> then for devs, ie the people who actually make all this stuff in the
 >> first place, there's even more improvements needed.
 >
 > I have almost 50 GBs of storage on my tablet, between the built-in flash
 > and an SD card, about half what I have on my ultrabook.

50GB? That's it? I have more than that in music alone. (And no, 
streaming music services is not an improvement. Although it is 
occasionally a nice supplement.)

My two most recent laptops, I've upgraded to 1TB HDDs. Anything less 
than that in local storage feels cramped. Plus then I have an old 
desktop with about 2.5-3TB between three drives. And three USB3 drives 
ranging from a few hundred GB to 1TB. And a USB2 @ 250GB.


 > If I weren't
 > filling that 50 GBs up with many GBs of HD video,

VMs also soak up a lot of space. (just sayin')


 > that's plenty of space for most people.

To marginalize desktops/laptops, mobile doesn't need to win over "most 
people". Those are the people they've already won over. It exactly us 
dev and power users that they need to win over now. And they can't do 
that by settling for whatever works for "most people".


 > As for peripherals, you're talking printers and
 > scanners?  Do people even use those anymore? :)

Yes. They're not sexy and don't generate "buzz", but that doesn't mean 
they aren't relied on. (Personal observation: The modern 
fashion-oriended tech sector seems to have major trouble recognizing 
that "buzzworthy" and "important" are not the same thing).


 > If there's any demand
 > for those at all, the dock for your smartphone will have a USB hub that
 > supports them.
 >

Yea. ONE usb port (that needs an adapter to be able to use just about 
anything out there besides charging) for everything to get funneled and 
crammed into: charging, HDMI, external storage, printer/scanner, jtag 
(arduino and such are big these days), optical disc (yes, these are 
still useful), adpators for whatever new protocols and connectors 
inevitably come along, etc. And that one-port-only means that you *also* 
need a hub in addition to everything else. Rendering the whole mess 
considerably less convenient than an actual all-in-one device: the laptop.


 > As for devs, they're a small percentage of the computer-using public,

You're looking at it wrong (IMO): Devs (and non-dev power users, don't 
forget there's a lot of them too) are a very significant portion of 
modern-day desktop/laptop users. They're the biggest reason why 
desktops/laptops haven't already been marginalized. Therefore, if mobile 
is going to replace desktop/laptop, it MUST support developer needs and 
support them WELL, not just in a half-hearted way. We devs and power 
users may be a minority, but we're a very large minority, and we happen 
to be crucial to everything the everyday-Joe majority users rely on. 
Mobile *cannot* marginalize us without throwing away it's own chance at 
ubiquity.


 > But even devs, most of whom certainly aren't using massive rigs with
 > Xeons and 32 GBs of RAM, will make the switch.

Right, that may very well happen. But again, that will require mobile to 
adopt the remaining features that have been keeping us on 
laptops/desktops, and thus become a hybrid. You're stance seems to be 
that multi-window UI is just about the only one left. I think there's 
much more than that.


 > Not much left if you ask me, just multiwindow UIs, which could have been
 > done at least a year earlier, and transitioning the few remaining
 > desktop apps that haven't made the mobile transition yet.
 >

Well, I guess that's where we disagree.


 >> And I think that's the biggest question mark, as they seem quite
 >> loathe to accept that mobile-style (or really, iOS-style, which
 >> everyone else in mobile copied wholesale) isn't universally superior
 >> for everyone in every way. This attitude will prevent them from
 >> reaching parity and replacing desktops/laptops until for as long as
 >> they choose to cling to it. How long they'll cling to it is the 
question.
 >
 > "mobile-style" is a very vague term, presumably you're referring to the
 > prevailing mobile touch GUIs.

That, plus the whole overall approach - gatekeeping, lock-downs, 
nearly-zero buttons/keys, minimal I/O ports, minimal expandability, 
neat-total vertical integration (business-wise), etc. Ie, "The way Apple 
designed the iPhone".


 > As I pointed out, the UI will need to be
 > adapted for desktop monitors.
 >

Definitely.


 >> But suppose, sooner or later, they've finally managed to improve
 >> enough to render the traditional line of desktops/laptops obsolete. It
 >> *WON'T* be a case of "mobile killed desktop". Because they will have,
 >> by necessity, BECOME just as much desktop as smartphone - the only
 >> difference being the lineage. It would be, in effect, exactly the same
 >> as laptops gaining mobile capabilities and mobile-friendly UI. Except,
 >> oh wait, that's happening too, see MS Surface Pro.
 >
 > That's what I detailed below: it's not the same and the failure of
 > Surface and other Windows two-in-ones shows that.
 >

Well, people don't *see* it as the same.

But no, there's plenty of other reasons for the troubles of Surface and 
Surface-alikes. The most notable one being Win8 itself (for about a 
million reasons). And then the disconnect between high-price and (for 
most of the surface models, particularly the earlier ones) weak hardware 
specs compared to even laptops that cost less (yes, surface pro's CPU is 
beefy, but that's about it).

It's *not* the approach itself that's wrong. They just haven't quite 
gotten all the details right. Just like the current day "connect 
keyboard to mobile, use as a desktop"...

See, the same argument can be made the other way too: Aside from a 
minority of techies such as yourself, nobody's actually using mobile in 
the style of "connect a keyboard/mouse, use as a desktop replacement". 
You could say it's been a failure *so far*. But as you know, that 
doesn't mean the approach is wrong, it just means there's still a few 
more details to be ironed out. Same thing with Surface.


 >> And then you need some place to set the phone/tablet. The natural
 >> choice is to dock it into the keyboard, ideally with some sort of
 >> hinge. At which point you've just re-invented the laptop form factor.
 >
 > I disagree that the keyboard is the natural place to dock the
 > phone/tablet,

Well, ok, *one* natural place, maybe not "the" natural place ;)


 > and the failure of such devices, both on the Android side
 > and especially on the Windows side, seems to show this.

I strongly suspect that if you hold up bluetooth keyboard sales up to 
the same "success/failure" standard as these devices you're referring 
too, that they would look like "failures" too.

I really don't believe the problem there was that the idea was wrong. I 
think the problem was that people *already* had their laptop/desktop for 
their keyboard-oriented needs, and the mobile systems just weren't yet 
ready to be a full replacement for laptops/desktops. The idea was right, 
but the state of the market was wrong. It was too early for it. But that 
will all change if mobile improves and desktops/laptops become 
increasingly marginalized.


 >  I simply prop
 > up my tablet on my desk on the side of something, whereas most will
 > likely just dock them in small holders, either just to hold them up or
 > to provide ports to connect to a larger monitor.
 >

Ok, so it's more like re-inventing the desktop then, instead of the laptop.


 >> The usefulness of laptop form factor won't go away, People will just
 >> start failing to recognize that it's just a laptop in new clothes with
 >> a few more tricks.
 >
 > It will go away, for the reasons I've given.

Not if you're just reinventing the form factor by propping up your 
monitor^H^H^H^H^H^H^Htablet and pulling out a keyboard+mouse.

It's just the particular lineage that (might) go away.


 >>> All that is converging is the software UIs, where mobile devices 
will be
 >>> able to display apps appropriately both for constrained 
touchscreens and
 >>> larger monitors controlled by a keyboard/trackpad.  Only in that last
 >>> sense are mobile devices converging, by adding software UIs to work on
 >>> large screens.
 >>>
 >>
 >> No, as you already pointed out yourself, the hardware capabilities are
 >> converging as well.
 >
 > Heh, never said anything of the sort.

Well, somebody was saying that mobile processors have been getting 
closer and closer in power to laptops. Which I have to strongly agree 
with. Maybe that wasn't you though.


 > Anyway, it's funny that you
 > respond to a quote limited to software and UIs by going on about
 > hardware again, never mentioning software. :)

No, you're misunderstanding me (deliberately?) You said "All that is 
converging is the software UIs". I'm saying "No, that isn't the only 
thing converging." Obviously I'm not going go on about the part we 
already agree on (software UI convergence), why would I?


 >> And then you have on one hand the whole "hooking up a keyboard/mouse"
 >> to a phone/tablet (and monitor too, HDMI-out has become pretty common
 >> on Android)...
 >
 > What is your point, that because we're still using keyboards and mice,
 > they're "converged?"

Not "converged". "ConvergING" towards some point in between traditional 
iPhone (and clones) and traditional laptop. And yes, *partly* because 
connecting keyboard/mouse is not something people have normally done 
with smartphones (at least not typically). And also because the gap in 
processing power is shrinking. And because you can now connect them to 
an external monitor. And because they're gaining desktop UIs. Maybe some 
other things too I haven't thought of off the top of my head.


 >  A car still moves on wheels yet nobody would say
 > it "converged" with a horse and carriage.  One feature, the wheels,
 > carried over, but most of it is completely different.

There's really no parallel between that and what I'm talking about.


 > I think that
 > since the underlying device, a smartphone, is fairly different from a
 > mainframe or a PC,

How so? *You're* the one saying (even more than I am anyway) that they 
are (or will soon be) suitable  replacements for PCs. How do you 
reconcile that with now suddenly saying they're different in a big 
enough way to be meaningful?


 > it's far-fetched to say the devices are "hybrid" or
 > "converged," simply because they're all using similar input peripherals
 > when used at a desk.

You've completely over-simplified my argument, and are now objecting 
that your modified version of my argument isn't valid.


 > But even that is only temporary, as voice and gesture recognition will
 > soon kill off those input peripherals too. :)

God I hope not. :) Touchscreen mini-chicklet keyboards (not to mention 
auto-correction) are already clunky and unreliable enough.


 >> And on the other hand, you have laptops getting their mainboards moved
 >> to the upper-half and becoming detachable from the bottom half, and
 >> getting smaller, lighter, better battery life...
 >> That...is form-factor convergence.
 >
 > That might be actual hardware form-factor convergence, if anybody were
 > buying those two-in-ones, but almost nobody is.
 >

Yet. Almost nobody is *yet*. Almost nobody is using their "smartphone + 
keyboard" as a desktop/laptop replacement either. Yet.

But I think we both agree it's clear that where computing, at the very 
least *should* go, is somewhere in between traditional iPhone and 
traditional laptop. And mobiles and PCs are both *trying* to reach for 
some point in-between.

Unless ALL sides turn out to be wrong (which seems unlikely) then 
naturally the "winner" will be something that does exist somewhere in 
that middle-ground that everyone's reaching towards. That "winner"'s 
lineage isn't particularly important (except to the corporations 
directly involved), because it will no longer be strictly a traditional 
smartphone nor traditional laptop.


 >>>> Of course, that's dependent on the phone/tablet folks actually
 >>>> managing to pull it off. Which is certainly a possibility, I agree,
 >>>> but I'm not convinced they'll necessarily manage to, at least not in
 >>>> the short term.
 >>>
 >>> It's around the bend and frankly should have been done sooner.
 >>>
 >>
 >> Never underestimate the power of corporate ineptitude ;)
 >
 > I agree with the sentiment, just not sure what you're trying to indicate
 > with the "corporate" qualifier.  "Ineptitude" alone would have 
sufficed. :)

Well, I'm not aware of any small mom-and-pop business putting out major 
OSes or devices. So non-corporate is irrelevant here, hence the 
arguably-unnecessary qualification.