Google Gears, the app that would’ve been a godsent – ten years ago
In case anyone accuses me of not getting the idea of Google Gears, let me say this: I don't get the whole Idea of google gears. I mean come on, it caches your javasript and html for offline use in a fashionable way and enables you to enter some input to your app which is later synchronized when you reconnect to the web. All right, this will certainly make things like playing ajax Tetris a whole lot easier. The weblogs are abuzz about how google gears is better than the second coming.
But wait...do you spot the error? Wasn't Ajax meant to do some significant computing on the server side? Wasn't the whole promise of Ajax, that you'd get some meaningful data from a remote server in a quick, painless way?
Right. What Gears accomplishes is nothing like that (how could they, it's technically impossible). Of course, you would be able to edit your spreadsheets and word processors but these have been around for offline use since the advent of personal computing. In other words: Google Gears will make it easier for developers that feel comfortable in that niche that is Ajax desktop computing.
But they do this in a way that is downright scary. Instead of keeping it simple, they add this enormous complex layer of technology between your browser and the actual server. God knows how any sane developer is going to be able to debug the mess this will likely create in all those bug scenarios. Additionally, webapp developers need to comply with some design principles of Gears to make their apps "Gears ready".
To make a long rant short: I know there are a lot of people out there, who desperately wish for a network computer - and so they hack away on applications that use ajax locally and eventually they can synchronize their data to the server. It's a nice toy for a computer hacker, but I think by the time something as complex as this will be usable by Mom and Dad, ubiquitous WLAN will be a reality and the need to use these frameworks will have disappeared. But let's wait and see if anyone can come up with some kind of killer app, that turns it all around ...I highly doubt it.
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June 1st, 2007 - 13:06
Well… I don’t think so, ubiquitous WLAN is a far, far way off, and even if when it arrives: there are still errors, downtime, and many other issues. Or I could just choose to stay offline …
I don’t think Google Gears is the second coming, but looking at the past, it’s yet another solution to get rid of some of the problems with current client Javascript applications, which will allow developers to make them look even more like real client side apps. Google Reader will serve as the first example, with the rest of the Google Apps to follow. And since everyone looks to Google for ideas nowadays… well, that’s the way the world will go.
Ever wonder why you’re using a CPU whose direct ancestor was designed to power desktop calculators or why we were using 16 bit rubbish software in the mid 90s? No good reason… just business reality…
Oh… and the worker pool is a nice solution for threading in Javascript…
June 1st, 2007 - 17:07
Well… I don’t think so, ubiquitous WLAN is a far, far way off
Yup, and so is GG for the average person. How do you even begin to explain what it does to your mum (given that she’s not an IT professional herself). One of the points I was trying to make is, that this is a technology that seems appealing to bleeding edge users, or even programmers but not the layperson.
I mean, come on – how many times did you hear somebody curse M$FT because his work got lost. Imagine the confusion something like Google Gears will create for these people, even if GG was deliverable.
People may be blind in following Google everywhere since it has the cool-factor, but I think this is a technology that will have to build it’s own market to subsist. No end user is going to adopt it just for the fun of it. Google has long had ambitions to take Microsofts throne and maybe this is just the latest step in this direction, but as for having enough leverage to pull this one off successfully – I remain sceptical.
And yea, I liked the workerpool too
June 1st, 2007 - 18:32
I am not a massive fan of it myself, but I see some benefits you might be missing:
1) It’s optional. That is, apps can be developed to work entirely online but have an optional “go offline” mode for those users who actually have Google Gears installed. This makes it a no brainer to support since you’re not damaging existing users by making provisions for Google Gears (though the same argument was made of Web standards, and look where that got us
).
2) It’ll probably end up in the browser by default. I wouldn’t be surprised if something like Google Gears ends up become a publicly accepted technology and is standardized and included in the next generation of mainstream browsers. Firefox 3.0 is certainly making steps in that direction.. so who’s to say Google won’t define the standard with Gears?
3) Gears makes it possible to use one app, rather than migrate between two. It’s possible to work on your Excel spreadsheets online with Google’s tools already, and when you want to go offline, you just edit them in Excel. Gears will allow us to simply stick with one.
I am sure these don’t answer all of your concerns, they certainly don’t answer all of mine.. but they’re points that, at least, rationalize it a little more to me.