Re: [xml-dev] JavaScript (was Re: [xml-dev] Whither XML ?)

[David <dlee@calldei.com>]

Some devices do support gzip HTTP encoding of text data some don't.
Even the ones that do, doesn't solve the problem of wanting to send 
binary data which is not simply gzip'd text using JS.
Javascript doesnt have a binary type, the JS HTTP API's dont allow you 
to fetch (into a JS variable) a binary result from an HTTP request.  
(except that interesting hack with PNG images ... )

And even if you do get gzip'd text the in-memory footprint of such text 
is big, due to 16 bit chars
and processing said text byte by byte in JS is inefficient.

For us who've gotten fat & lazy with the good life of pretending 
everyone has 4G of ram and a 4Ghz  quad core processor, working on 
mobile devices is humbling.   Even when those devices are 100x more 
powerful of the PC's of yesteryear.
Add JavaScript to the mix and the dissertation that it is "The VM of the 
Browser", then add the architectural concept that every app should be a 
locally running "web app" (Web/OS style)  and life is a sad sad state of 
affairs.

I'm sorry but I just dont buy it.  Until JS improves *dramatically* (not 
just in speed but capibility) I predict we will NOT see the plethra of 
high quality 'web apps' that pendants predict.    You just need to look 
at your iPhone for proof.
You can run web apps on it, you can run native apps.   How many '100% 
pure web apps' on the iphone are worth using ?
Do you launch a browser and go to maps.google.com ? or do you launch the 
Google Maps native app.

Why ?



David A. Lee
dlee@calldei.com
http://www.xmlsh.org

>>
>>
>> We were completely unable to adopt this technique to the Palm Web/OS due
>> to the inability to do binary IO and efficient binary parsing.
>> ...
>
> Are you saying those do not support
>
>   Content-Encoding: gzip
>
> ?
>
> Best regards, Julian