Google Native Client: The web of the future – or the past?
Chad Austin believes in Google's Native Client because he believes in the web.
He sees the web as the ultimate programming platform – something that spans not only disparate devices but the competing interests of the world's corporate tech giants – and he sees Native Client as a way of bringing most any language to the platform, including C, C++, and other lightning-fast "native" languages that have access to a machine's underlying hardware.
Native Client – a Google open source project more than three years in the making – is specifically designed to run native code securely inside web browsers, and for Austin, it puts web applications on "the same playing field" as local applications, providing the raw speed needed to compete with traditional software on 3D games, video editing, and more.
"Native Client democratizes web technology," says Austin, a typical Silicon Valley developer who writes a typical blog on the side. "The web needs to be a first-class platform at the level of Windows and iOS." Read more...