Interesting, but breaking backwards compatibility with both traditional desktop apps and legacy web applications does not bode well for anybody wanting to gain a developer mass anytime soon, or at all. Neither does maintaining a separate body of code for essentially the same functionality sound attractive either.

We can already see examples of running rich web applications on the desktop in Adobe Air and JavaFX. For the most part, these products already satisfy the basic requirements of running web apps locally. However, they’re still largely restricted to their own sandboxes. Inter-operability between applications is difficult due to default anti-XSS scripting rules that’s probably for the best, given the browser scene right now. At the desktop environment space, however, the OS provider may be able to create a permission manager to specifically grant rights to certain sandboxed apps to talk to one another, similar to how desktop apps can talk to each other using DBUS. That would open up a whole new world of possibilities.

Consider the effort put into refining a protocol and application to transmit windows over a network.

Is it not conceivable they intend to build application hosted in the cloud, and manipulated / controlled as a native application, comunicating with the cloud via the new windowing system protocol.

So -> instead of writing web apps using html / javascript css, write web apps using a native windowing manager.

Ever controlled another computer using vnc or remote desktop etc?

I imagine we get to control apps running in the cloud in a similar manner.

Makes sense to me

Why do you think Microsoft is attempting, with their “bingaling boondoggle” to lasso the wild stallion that Google has already mounted and is riding with skill and poise already? They know their stranglehold on the operating system market is just about over as the vast majority of computer users are much more interested in ONLY the social aspects of computing connectivity.

We want our “carry-all-the-time” connectivity devices to “just work” and work all the time and if the only name we ever see is “Google”…then so be it…and Gates and Jobs can go work in a chinese laundry somewhere.

We are indeed, living in interesting times!

Sincerely,
John and Dagny Galt
Atlas Shrugged, Owner’s Manual For The Universe!(tm)

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There’re pros n cons to both sides, that’s a given. What you say is true, to develop a webapp entails learning HTML, CSS, JS and then you’ve got that nasty server side palette of frameworks to select from. But given the potential reach of a webapp compared to a desktop-bound app, many are going down that road anyway. The sheer richness of desktop apps available currently has set the bar very high for webapps to compete, but that’s what the major web players are trying to push new standards towards. My jaw hits the floor almost everyday gaping at the cool shit featured on Ajaxian. And the code needed to write said cool shit just gets shorter and shorter. In GWT, you have some semblance of a “single platform” to code the entire webapp stack that you were asking about (although I’m still trying to learn and find out if it really works as advertised).

Things are coming along, all in all.

In any case I would like comment from any experienced Web/Desktop apps developers as to the feasibility of Google using KDE Web Developer (Quanta Plus) as a primary tool in this new project, particularly since this toolkit contains elements of both KDE Desktop and a complete Web Development environment.

W. Anderson
wanderson@kimalcorp.org

“And however screwed the web is right now in terms of web standards currently, is it any worse than what we have in the traditional desktop world?”

Um, yes, for a developer it is IMHO. We may have a bazillion and a half toolkits and languages, but I only need to use one of each of them for any given project. To make a halfway decent web application, I have to juggle HTML, CSS, a server-side scripting language (PHP/ASP/Perl/etc), and JavaScript at a bare minimum.

The world really needs a replacement for javascript if this cloud thing is to move forward. I would love to see a complete web language in which one could write a web app from top to bottom as elegantly as in traditional clientside languages. Maybe Google will deliver?

Browser based gaming is HUGE, especially in the casual market. And its not all bejewelled and scrabble anymore either, theres MMORPG games like Runescape, FPS like Quake Live, Sure no one is going to be playing Crysis or Starcraft 2 on this machine, but thats not what it is designed for either.