[HN Gopher] An operating system for the web
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       An operating system for the web
        
       Author : MaysonL
       Score  : 75 points
       Date   : 2024-05-07 08:27 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (jasongullickson.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (jasongullickson.com)
        
       | gregw2 wrote:
       | It might be interesting to contrast with an earlier OS for the
       | web - Sun Microstems Jini.
        
       | desktopninja wrote:
       | Like this idea. Reminded me of Aestiva HTML/OS. The Array Desktop
       | (WUI) had, if I recall correctly, a File Manager, Text Editor,
       | IDE, Calendar, and a scheduler.
        
         | calvinmorrison wrote:
         | Aestiva, what absolutely slop. In fact its still running our
         | entire business to this day. Its practically an entire ERP,
         | CRM, HR, Timesheey, Billing platform, Reporting engine, etc
         | 
         | Makes me frequently hate my life but its what we got and it'll
         | probably be around until I die
         | 
         | edit: if you are a competent Aestiva programmer, please shoot
         | me an email at calvin@pobox.com
        
       | frou_dh wrote:
       | Not sure about this. Sounds like it's somewhat arbitrarily
       | reframing RPC over HTTP as OS system calls. But maybe I just
       | don't get it.
        
         | bschmidt1 wrote:
         | Haha tell this to the gRPC people.
         | 
         | I could see this being cool for decentralization/peer-to-peer.
         | It's essentially HTTP in front of a FS. It could be implemented
         | as anything from a blockchain to a NoSQL db to AWS S3.
         | 
         | OP says:
         | 
         | > This was before things like local storage, etc. were
         | available in browsers.
         | 
         | And looking at the repo it's like a decade old. Would be really
         | cool if OP could find a use case and share that - I think that
         | of all libs/frameworks: Show me the thing being made with it.
        
       | tazu wrote:
       | The idea is interesting, but a Javascript filesystem sounds
       | awful.
        
         | dmd wrote:
         | Why?
        
         | bschmidt1 wrote:
         | It seems great IMO considering the shape of JSON/NoSQL for
         | cache and JavaScript's multi-process quirk that would allow you
         | to do things in the background or multiple things at once on a
         | single thread.
        
       | gwbas1c wrote:
       | I wrote something based around these concepts in 2008-2010:
       | https://github.com/GWBasic/ObjectCloud
       | 
       | I don't think it "works" in today's world where installed apps on
       | iOS / Android are more common than web applications.
        
       | lenerdenator wrote:
       | How does this compare with, say, Plan 9?
        
       | x3haloed wrote:
       | I don't understand. What's an example of something that could be
       | achieved using a system like this?
        
       | daitangio wrote:
       | Try pigshell, http://pigshell.com/ It is an interesting
       | approach... but it is a bit old project
        
       | zubairq wrote:
       | Interesting. What do you envision as potential use cases for JS
       | OS?
        
       | SahAssar wrote:
       | > I didn't realize it at the time, but I was beginning to write a
       | filesystem
       | 
       | But it uses nodejs normal fs adapter to talk to the filesystem
       | (or forwards to a GCP bucket). This is no more a filesystem than
       | WebDAV is, which is already standardized and widely supported for
       | the same usecase as JSFS.
       | 
       | > Obviously, other operating systems can run web applications,
       | but this operating system runs them natively.
       | 
       | But does it really? In the proposed model could I run a browser
       | on JS/OS?
       | 
       | The proposal seems to be some combination of a wrapper around
       | nodejs fs module (or the standard GCP storage client), a wrapper
       | around nodejs vm module to eval code, and a arduino sketch that
       | reads/writes GPIO.
       | 
       | Either my reading comprehension is bad or there is not much here.
        
       | claudiulodro wrote:
       | Maybe I'm not super clear on the distinction, but isn't a web
       | browser already the operating system for the web? It's the "OS"
       | that runs web applications!
        
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       (page generated 2024-05-08 23:01 UTC)