[Tfug] Browser based UI's

[Bexley Hall]

> I am somewhat worried that companies
> are going to try to force the issue on the Browser UI thing,
> and leave those of us who still absolutely must have our own
> apps in a internet-less environment. Let me explain...

Well, to be fair, I am not thinking of this from the standpoint
of "The Internet".  Rather, as a system architecture question.
I.e., does it make sense to separate the application and the
user interface along these lines; how much of the application
ends up having to spill over that boundary to give any sort
of "reasonable" performance/feel?
 
> 1) I work overseas, and travel a lot. That means a lot of
> places that still do not have any internet, or at least
> nothing reliable.

Yeah, try some of the backwaters in Brazil!  :>
 
> 2) I work in China, which means I presently CANNOT do

Ah, OK.  I see you already understand  :>

> Facebook, Twitter (actually, I don't do that anyway,
> but...), Youtube, or some other things that Chrome would
> focus on. This is due to sensorship, and particularly due to
> the stuff going on in Xinjiang, Uighur Autonomous Region
> right now. Forget that, a couple weeks ago, I couldn't
> even get a google search page or my gmail, because China was
> trying to pressure Google to clamp down on its search
> results regarding porn! (On its own, I'm all for the
> anti-porn measures China is trying to do, but of course that
> is not all they are trying to do...)

And, the network latencies no doubt become annoying -- even
if you *could* get where you want to go. 

> 3) I write things for publishing, and need the reliability
> of my own hardware based desktop publishing apps.

Yes.  Imagine having to have a sizeable piece of code running
in the browser just to put all the context menus up when you
want them (without the delay of a call back to the server)
 
> 4) I sometimes work with sound, not professionally, but I
> wouldn't even think of trying that through a browser!
> Ditto for graphics.
> 
> 5) Again, the network thing: I often need to work on docs
> while on public transportation. Even with the rapid
> proliferation of 3G here in China in the cities, it is
> doubtful that I could expect high reliability.
> 
> In otherwords, to be frank, I am not presently even
> remotely interested in a Chrome OS, or a cloud, or whatever.
> Nice idea for some things, but when everyone else is gaga
> over google, will I still be able to have a full OS on my
> computer? I would like the capability on top of what I
> presently have for when I need it, but I don't want the
> other to dissappear.

You'll become one of those folks who seeks to preserve historical
versions of software  ;-)