[buug] $*#! JavaScript and the new playing field for Free Software

[Nick Jennings]

Hi All, this is loosely based off Ian Zimmerman's post regarding
blocking of JavaScript and the "Brave New Web" as he put it.

I'm wondering what you guys think of the advent of 'web-apps' in
general. Is your distaste for JavaScript across the board, or do you
see benefits when used for a specific purpose (like a web application)
and just don't want random JS running as you browse general purpose
websites?

I've long hated webapps, but as I've continued to give it thought and
consider different perspectives I do see a ton of benefits. Namely
that JavaScript is quickly becoming the one language that can span
across all the different developers of the world and be a common
platform we can all use to share and communicate ideas with. We breach
platform dependencies (as long as we're not talking about low-level
system and driver interfacing software) and the possibilities for free
software grow.

With projects like unhosted.org, we can decouple the web-app from the
server lock-in and keep our own data, become unreliant on server-side
app-logic, and can reach a much wider audience. With local storage and
increasing performance, we can make apps which operate offline,
provide great user interfaces, and even use hardware acceleration.

There will never be a replacement for keeping the power of your OS (I
hate the concept of the chrome-book), but in many ways the advent of
HTML5, the movement to embrace JavaScript rather than put up with it,
and web-apps in general, do help to level the playing feild for free
operating systems.

What do you all think?
-Nick