I've had the opportunity to work with this project and it does deliver. In terms of code portability it's pretty good. Small changes had to be done to accommodate some yet to be supported APIs. No big deal though. The performance is good. Even on the low end chromebook I test with. Myonly concern is related to how the (my) codebase might need to evolve over time to adapt to ARC updates. Right now it's pretty sane with only a handful of extra settings on the manifest file. But I worry about being forced into forking. Having two similar but slightly different codebase for the same app is silly.
The overall experience with the Google team has been very positive. Which, in all honesty, surprised me. I was expecting the typical corporate attitude towards outsiders. The way the ARC team has gone above and beyond to help has been refreshing.
I do worry as to how this would affect the openness of the web. A closed source container used to run other closed sourced clients is not my idea of how the Web should be. Even Mozilla is going down this route with their browser apps. Though I have more trust in Mozilla than in Google in regards to having and keeping an open web. Either way, it raises an important question: Where is the Web going in the next 10 years? I wish I knew. Right now it looks like a toss up.
> Even Mozilla is going down this route with their browser apps.
Why are you saying that?
What Mozilla is doing is to develop web APIs needed for those apps and then push for their standardization, but all the apps listed in the Firefox Marketplace are just web apps, having no problem in running in other browsers (assuming they don't rely on APIs that haven't been standardized yet). Google is also doing this with Chrome on Android, as they've also been pushing for certain standards to be adopted that would benefit apps.
Of course, I also worry about ARC or NaCL or Dart (what's with Google these days?), however the work that Mozilla and Google are doing on those web APIs meant for apps is really not the same thing.
Huh that's interesting. I haven't looked much into ARC (or NaCL for that matter), I just wanted to point out to the parent that it's fairly typical for Google to go down multiple paths for a specific market need. They're kind of the anti-Apple in that regard.
Good points. My worries are more directed towards the browser becoming a second OS and moving towards client apps. I guess I'm old school and am still tied to good old html.
Everything involved in Firefox OS and their web apps is open as far as I know, what are you thinking of when you say they're going down the 'closed source container / clients' route?
My point is more towards Chrome/Google. I mentioned Mozilla with regards to firefox the Web browser and not firefox os. The latter does excite my interest and has me dying to get my hands on a device to tinker with and build apps. Even if it's with javascript. :)
The overall experience with the Google team has been very positive. Which, in all honesty, surprised me. I was expecting the typical corporate attitude towards outsiders. The way the ARC team has gone above and beyond to help has been refreshing.
I do worry as to how this would affect the openness of the web. A closed source container used to run other closed sourced clients is not my idea of how the Web should be. Even Mozilla is going down this route with their browser apps. Though I have more trust in Mozilla than in Google in regards to having and keeping an open web. Either way, it raises an important question: Where is the Web going in the next 10 years? I wish I knew. Right now it looks like a toss up.