I still think it's a miracle that the browser was the solution to the client-server problem x-windows was trying to solve all along.
X was the solution to the problem MIT had, and as such, the problem X was trying to solve. It worked very, very well for what it was trying to solve.
How we ended up with billions of people able to interact with an app that we can all build at home seems insane...
Java. Java did this. On billions of devices! Everywhere from your smart card to the mainframe. Before Java, Dis! Before Dis, Forth! Good luck running a web browser plus your application on a smart card, or even (decently) on an underpowered netbook.
Good luck running a web browser plus your application on a smart card, or even (decently) on an underpowered netbook.
Sufficiently young people probably suspect these were called netbooks as some joke. They run Emacs just fine and without constantly swapping, but a web browser?
They’re fine little web browsers if you manage to enable web browser acceleration for the integrated intel video card.
If not, they can’t even run JavaScript ads, because apparently ads like to refresh the screen with a static image at 60fps. Software rasterizers can’t keep up with that (even on 32 core, >200W TDP xeons, from what I’ve seen...)
The web really sucks at everything other than network effects.
X was the solution to the problem MIT had, and as such, the problem X was trying to solve. It worked very, very well for what it was trying to solve.
How we ended up with billions of people able to interact with an app that we can all build at home seems insane...
Java. Java did this. On billions of devices! Everywhere from your smart card to the mainframe. Before Java, Dis! Before Dis, Forth! Good luck running a web browser plus your application on a smart card, or even (decently) on an underpowered netbook.