"Two years ago, the number of developers writing applications for the Microsoft Windows platform fell, while the opposite was true for Linux - this has now become a trend. Instead of the Web stealing away Windows Users, as people have predicted for years, it's Linux and handheld devices. According to analysts at the Evans Data Corporation research house, 64.8 percent of North American developers are writing software for Windows, down from 74 percent only a year ago. The decline in popularity of the world's most prevalent operating systems appears to coincide with the rise of Linux, as the number of developers targeting the open-source environment has gone up by three percentage points from 8.8 percent to 11.8 percent in the same year."
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Member since:2005-07-06
"Hopefully by the time that happens, they'll figure out a way to make these apps run standalone. At this moment, just typing this with one tab open, Opera is consuming nearly 40MB of RAM. By comparison, the PIM I use (WinOrganizer) has TONS of functionality built into it, and runs happyily in my system tray using about 3.6MB of RAM."
With all due respect, 40mb isn't that much. How much RAM does WinOrganizer consume when you have the GUI open after a few minutes? When apps are minimized to the sys tray, you'll see RAM go down quite a bit as the GUI is unloaded from memory, which is (of course) what takes up most of the memory.
Member since:2005-11-13
With all due respect, 40mb isn't that much.
I guess 40MB isn't really that much, assuming you're used to coding your apps with fat-ass, bloated frameworks.
Just having Opera (one of the lighter web browsers) open with an empty tab is 30MB. Even if we were to agree that 30MB isn't that much for a web browser, it also means that if I'm running all my apps in a browser, then ANY app on the system (even if it is as simple as Notepad) requires at least 30MB to get going. That is unacceptable, IMHO.
How much RAM does WinOrganizer consume when you have the GUI open after a few minutes?
6.8MB. And that's running with all my tasks, notes, calander, etc. And it's fast too, and can run off a USB stick 
Edited 2007-07-07 20:15
Member since:2005-07-24
Yes, but 40MB only represents about $2.50 (US) worth of memory. How many programmer-hours of development time, and how much maintainability, do you want sacrificed in the name of the $2.25 dropping the requirement from 40MB to 3.6MB would save you?
Yeah, when I was in high school, I maxed out my new Apple ][ with a full 48k. I know that 40MB seems a huge waste to my 1980's oriented brain. But the reality is that 40MB is worth less than a Big Mac, fries, and a large coke in the year 2007.
40MB is not even that significant for handhelds anymore.
It might be significant to OLPC, though.
Member since:2005-09-15
bah that's been claimed since Netscape Navigator announced they were going to release the ability to browse your computers filesystem in the browser and put the browser integrated into your desktop.
That scared MSFT into putting their browser into the OS free which crushed Netscape and the rest is history.
Member since:2006-12-07
Web applications and desktop applications target different audiences most of the time. Not always, but most of the time. When you have a number of applications to be used by number of users in a number of locations it is often easier implement them as web applications that work with universal client.
The solution for your problem would be a network computer.
Member since:
2005-11-13
The popular notion among tech industry followers is that a more capable Web browser, able to run sophisticated applications either online or offline, will make the desktop operating system less important, if not irrelevant.
Hopefully by the time that happens, they'll figure out a way to make these apps run standalone. At this moment, just typing this with one tab open, Opera is consuming nearly 40MB of RAM. By comparison, the PIM I use (WinOrganizer) has TONS of functionality built into it, and runs happyily in my system tray using about 3.6MB of RAM.
So, as an end user, can you developers out there see why I'd rather have my balls crushed by a wooden mallot than run all my apps in a goddamn web browser? You guys need to find a solution where online apps can run as light and as fast as their native counterparts. And yes, this means that BOTH Java and .NET need to go away in a favor of a better solution.