linuxontheweb
linuxontheweb on Hacker News
Dear Mozilla,
You love the web platform as well as openness. Can we start working together on an open, web-based platform to enable the efficient development and deployment of applications of any sort (ML-related and otherwise)?
I'm asking because I've spent over a decade of my life creating an absolutely seamless front-end web experience (https://linuxontheweb.github.io/).
Signed,
Dennis Kane
Yeah, I'm not sure if "partnerships" is what my project would be looking for either. I'm honestly curious on the purely conceptual level of how you think the corporate world might approach the concept of "very stateful" clients. FWIW, most of my interest is in enabling DIY/hobbyist and academic research use cases that would in fact want as much client-side statefulness as possible.
I guess I don't really understand the idea of macros extremely well. In your system, is it basically a function that's dynamically generated from the interface that is bound to a context-sensitive keyboard shortcut?
Same for my own "Linux" desktop environment (
https://linuxontheweb.github.io/).
One of the most enjoyable aspects of my development process is searching for the
perfect Unicode symbol for a given application. I love using Unicode symbols as file icons because they combine the concepts of expressive iconography and the rendering efficiency of text.
According to Crunchbase: "Plato is a researcher of web designs and visual programming systems. It means that vertical apps are unbundled into baskets of composable capabilities, and horizontal platforms support entirely new software that integrates those capabilities across application boundaries."
The first sentence definitely sounds cool to me. Just curious if you think any of your customers might find added value if your platform were embedded into my own "web desktop" platform (https://linuxontheweb.github.io/).
One of the things I'm often meditating over is how to go about enabling various visual programming possibilities, such as in modular synth applications like Max/MSP.
Well, GNU/Linux, as such might not, but the various desktops that run atop it most certainly should care.
Re: ACK! THBBFT!: Just my personal ode to Bloom County which I feel must certainly be regarded as the greatest comic strip ever. (I need to wait for others to start coming on board with the project before I worry about doing things for any other reason than pure self-amusement.)
To most, it is a curious fact that file extensions should be of very much interest to me in the context of front-end web development. Up until a few months ago, my project (
https://linuxontheweb.github.io/) was a fairly Chrome-centric thing (using window.webkitRequestFileSystem), and could lead to flame wars when trying to promote it. But now, all of the major browser vendors ship with the new origin private file system (OPFS, which uses navigator.storage.getDirectory).
I know I previously used to perform sanity checks on file data to see if it should actually be sent to a given application (such as a text editor), but I don't currently see that anywhere in the code, since I've recently been prioritizing code simplicity and understandability above all else.
Here's the file where I define which extensions are opened by which apps: https://github.com/linuxontheweb/linuxontheweb.github.io/blo... .
More than anything, IMO, you need to turn the web from a quicksand pit into an actual solid platform with dependable interface elements (like icons and windows) and file system management. That's why I've been hacking away on
Linux on the Web (
https://linuxontheweb.github.io/) for over a decade.
As long as web applications are necessarily embedded inside of SCRIPT elements, which are themselves necessarily embedded inside of HTML elements, then documents will always have priority over applications.
I don't see the "binaryification" of the web platform happening any time soon (if ever). The web is (and should remain) fundamentally about the transmission of documents. Javascript+DOM allows for the dynamic updating of said documents, and this is what the main thread (asynchronous event loop) is all about. For all "heavy lifting," the logic should go into worker threads, where there isn't any DOM access anyway. I think a decent rule of thumb is that WASM modules should generally only be used in these kinds of off-the-event-loop types of worker threads.
(See https://linuxontheweb.github.io/ for my implementation of a new kind of web application platform where these kinds of ideas can start becoming a reality.)
"FDUPES is a program for identifying or deleting duplicate files residing within specified directories."
All I see is a program with all of its source code in the top level directory. Never heard of 'src/'?
> Tabs vs spaces, anyone? Vim vs Emacs? Maybe TS vs JS?
Tabs: Who needs all the extra bytes?
Vim: What. Even. Is. Emacs.
JS: 0 development toolchain dependencies are always the best number of development toolchain dependencies.
Well, although I certainly can get enjoyment through never-ending hours of coding, I am mainly doing this project to get something to actually work.
I would tend to look at this project as an implementation rather than an emulation.
The current implementation of the shell is certainly in a highly bare bones state, but that can definitely change over time if that is in fact where the development process leads. If it gets to the point of being able to quack like a POSIX shell, then who's to say that it isn't really one?
Wouldn't launching a browser within a bare-bones X11 session in some kind of kiosk mode during system initialization be a proper solution?
Well, there is technically no such thing as an "actual Linux system." There are mainly GNU/Linux systems. If one is using the word "Linux" from a high-level systems theoretical perspective, the they are speaking about a certain philosophy related to how they approach the question of performing general computations. So, it is from the "Unix philosophical" point of view that I use the word "Linux." This also seems to be the generally accepted way of using that word, because most people use it as a shorthand for something with much more cultural significance (i.e. the open source alternative to the Windows or Mac ecosystems) than the kinds of technical facts to which you are referring.
Everything is mainly just my own handcrafted Javascript. There is only one wasm module included so far (binjgb) to allow for the playing of gameboy games.
I've previously tried to implement all of those sorts of POSIX-isms, but I've recently been wanting to make the tradeoff where code simplicity and understandability trumps all other considerations. Then, when others start coming on board the project, we can start making determinations about what kinds of "proper" shell functions to support.
So, at this point, "bare yet dependable" is what I'm going for! You can actually get more feedback about the filesystem through the desktop interface. You can show an icon cursor by pressing the 'c' key, and then move it over a file icon. Then, just press the 'p' key to show the properties of the file.
Help page here: https://linuxontheweb.github.io/www/docs/help.html
Ahh... my two favorite tech-related subject matters: Linux distros and the politics of browser choice. I'm currently trying to invert this entire discussion by putting a well-oiled Linux distro
inside of the browser [1].
[1] For whoever doubts that a proper Linux distro can be created through pure Javascript running in a browser, you obviously haven't tried out https://linuxontheweb.github.io/ yet!
It is in the nature of the atomic elements in the class of noble gases to not do much mixing with other elements.
We too are made up of atomic elements. In our case, it would be the precise combinations of these elements that would tend to make us more or less noble. This concept of "precise combinations of elements" also goes under the term, "genetics."
Regardless, the nurture vs. nature debate is indeed quite a thorny one.
Okay, I think I've finally figured out why Linux on the Web [1] exists! I'll be able to help with a startup that enables freedom fighters to control the drones that will shoot down the drones that are being flown by the cops :-D !!!
So who's with me?
[1] https://linuxontheweb.github.io/
You really need a coherent model of physical reality in order to make much of a comment on the notion of freedom. Any such model will include
laws as well as
degrees of freedom. So with Sapolsky, we find a biologist who's never had a professional need to come face-to-face with the major issues within relativity theory or within quantum theory. And for those who are able to develop coherent models (e.g. string or M-theoretical), they are faced with a kind of mathematics of such infinite depth and subtlety that all you can do is surrender whatever childish Laplace-demonesque fantasies that you might once have had.
He just thinks: physics is hard and filled with technical stuff that must ultimately be "solvable." Maybe so, but if there are always an infinity of solutions, then there is obviously room for the concept of free will.
I have a prominent place on google under the term "the peace guy." I went out to LA in 2011, and just started holding my peace sign fingers in the air on Bruin Walk. You should see me in an image right next to the Bruin bear by going to
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+peace+guy.
I've been in Florida since 2012, and I'm just starting to bring the ol' peace sign back now.
Funny story: I went to Silicon Valley in 2016, and was flying a sign about my project at the Googleplex when a group of fresh-faced Googlers approached me and asked if I was the peace guy from UCLA!
Back when I started doing it, Occupy Wall Street was just breaking out. Now it seems like us revolutionaries are going to need to Occupy Every Street...
We might need to wait another generation or two before Nietzsche's stuff starts making proper sense. I've been feeling that there's going to need to be some sort of a global reckoning between communist and capitalist ways of thinking. The counter-culture movement from the 60's was just too pervasive to go away forever. That movement needed a breather to allow the tech industry to grow as much as it possibly could. If we are going to start seeing the end of growth in tech, a revolution-centric hippie scene could start re-emerging sooner rather than later. Once these issues start playing out, then I think we'll have a better understanding of how the future generations will relate to the idea of nobility. So I'm pretty confident that it won't have very much to do with the purely capitalist notion of "layabout managers."
I wanted to make
Linux on the Web precisely because I knew that
Unix Philosophy on the Web would never catch on.
"Linux" is merely the current pronunciation for the ideas that were coming out of Bell Labs in the 1970s.
I think Nietzsche was on to something with his concept of the noble classes, according to whom morality becomes fully life affirming, i.e. beyond good and evil. Everything else being based on the herd instincts of the "slave classes."
Only global revolution can begin the process of changing the hideous path we are all currently on. My current thinking is that Marx's ideas needed a fully internet covered planet before they could have a prayer of being realized. One might say that not only does capitalism contain the seeds of its own destruction (via unlimited growth), but also of its own replacement (via a computer networked planet).
Interesting times, indeed!
"Why you should care"
There is no should with caring. You either care or you don't. Everything else is a lame act.
People should start working on things that they happen to care about. Everything else will fall into place after that.
On a somewhat related note, who wants to help me start a hippie commune in a very well-known Florida college town with an astronomical number of beautiful women of every nationality? They actually know who I am because I'm the one guy who always happens to be openly flirting with them in public spaces. I really have that Silicon Valley CEO kind of a vibe in a place that is literally overflowing with the "same old fratty dude" everywhere you look!
I want to do what Miller Puckette did, but on the web.
It's because of previous creativity such as his that I continue to work on a new kind of platform [1]. I can only assume that creatives (especially musically inclined ones) will take the lead in making my thing become our thing.
[1] https://github.com/linuxontheweb/linuxontheweb.github.io
LOL ;-)
I just wonder what Hank Hill would say about this "free water" concept. Do you think Hank might support a "free propane" concept? I doubt Hank would think that "free propane accessories" would work very well. Hmmm...