Chrome, the browser
I have friends who tell me the Chrome browser is far better at handling memory than most other leading browsers. It doesn't suffer the memory leaks that Firefox does. Leave that one on all day and you may find all of your machine's memory gobbled up. Safari, on Mac anyway, sometimes sloooowwwwssss down to a snail's pace due so wackiness with Adobe Flash Player, or so it seems to me. I will give Chrome a better try out.
Innovator
3/21/2012 12:21:00 AM
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Re: Chrome in the Comics
Well John I obviously missed the message on first swing. Looking at what appears to be the main issue of software based layers versus networked based ones, your argument is a good one - and I say why reinvent the wheel ? Meaning building on a rigid stack of functional layers has been working, and I don't see a compelling argument to do otherwise. I believe that was a single.
It was not the Chrome browser I was referring to but the Chrome OS ( ok it is web based semantics ) which I don't believe is in much use except perhaps within Google itself. But the comic does touch on the subtle point I was trying to make.
End of the inning - Down by one.
Chrome in the Comics
A flatter browser? Could very well be. I suppose there could be a stack of software layers in a browser, a set of functions that call on each other in a certain way, through certain interfaces. That makes sense. And flatter might mean faster.
I just Googled around on this idea, couldn't find anything, but I did find a Google-produced comic book about Chrome and how it attains its speedy rendering of Web content. It's pretty nifty. Smart, I mean. Check it out.
Innovator
3/19/2012 7:43:37 PM
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Re: The Chrome OS ?
@John Maybe I don't understand it correctly but I was under the impression the Chrome OS is "flatter in design" unlike the traditional stack.
Re: The Chrome OS ?
I am not sure I "get" the comparison to Chrome, unless you mean simply that the user has a window/browser into a menu of services supplied by servers somewhere in the cloud, or perhaps in a closet down the hall. In this, Hawes is correct, I think, but my problem was his dismissing the layers idea altogether, as if it never helped or had any relevance.
Re: The Chrome OS ?
Good catch, Seth. Perhaps we should bring Mr. Hobarth in to write for us. Or Hawes himself.
Hawes makes a good point about the app being a focal point of function and relates that to the role the user may have, but I think he punts when he asks if the inside of the app needs to be layered. I say it does need to be organized and understood that way or else you end up with anarchy. I just thought, originally, that Hawes was too dismissive of the layered model, which is, after all, standard thinking not only in applications stacks but networking, too.
Re: Layers, Stacks and Metaphors
Yes but just as a starting point in my personal development. That's the first stack that I was accustomed to.
SethGB
3/17/2012 6:16:04 PM
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Re: The Chrome OS ?
I'm glad the article has started this discussion.
At the bottom of the article, the writer responds to a comment of a reader that I think makes some interesting points.
Innovator
3/16/2012 7:47:08 PM
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The Chrome OS ?
I was not aware of the term Web services in regard to a replacement for the traditional stack. But the more I think of it - this is another way to say we are moving to a web based platform much like what Google is promoting in it's Chrome OS ?
Re: Layers, Stacks and Metaphors
The thing about a network of the kind Hawes seems to favor is that it is more or less dimensionless, so it provides less structure and guidance for connecting things. A stack of software layers brings with it at least some structure and makes it easier for everyone to understand.
Mostly, though, I think Hawes' thinking is overly simplistic and not thought through.
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Your argument would carry more weight if you could show exactly how your network metaphor would explain, or organize, the current software stack any better, in a more helpful and practical way, than the well-accepted layers metaphor. You may be right about networks of apps, but what about the organization of function within each of those apps? I doubt very much that you can better organize those internal functions – OS, hypervisor, etc. – in terms of a dimensionless network. Thus, your total dismissal of the software layers diagram, or metaphor, is highly suspect. In short, you've slipped into hyperbole, perhaps only for effect, but you've lost the logic.
Ron,
I absolutely agree that organization of functionality is necessary somewhere in the network, and I'm sorry if my writing implied that my thinking had abandoned logic. I intended to convey that the application is where that organization should happen. Sorry I wasn't more clear.
In my view, applications are the place where various functionality located in the network of services comes together in a way that enables an individual in a specific role to complete a particular task. The application must, of course, have some sort of structure in which to organize its functionality. But does that need to be layered? I'm not so sure and would appreciate comments from other readers of this post.