CODEWITHSUNDEEP
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user3083425
user3083425

Reputation: 11

The client side of web development

In the field of RIAs, I've read tons of comments stated that the discussion about Silverlight vs JavaFX vs Flash vs HTML5 is outdated and the winner is HTML5.

Since I am a programmer (not a designer) but never used any of the technologies above and I have no time to learn all of them to compare, I want to ask the following:

1) With HTML5 we continue to only have interpreted JavaScript, or we can use more powerful languages that generates compiled code (some kind of MSIL or bytecode inside <object> ... </object> tags)?

2) Does HTML5 hide portions of our code from unwanted viewers (like Java applets and ActiveX did in the past) or the option "View - Source Code" continues to show all of our work?

3) HTML5 need some kind of runtime or all the work is done by the browser?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 128

Answers (2)

Alex
Alex

Reputation: 11245

HTML5 is a brand and trend. In silverlight/flash/html battle HTML must be the winner. Because browsers can't progress fragmentary. Is it true then some part of features developing in browser plugins, some part in browsers. For strong and fast progress always, at the start, needs the vector. In redefining web in our life such vector is HTML5. HTML5 is not a language, it is the set of capabilities, such video, music, webgl, geolocation, semantic essences and more and more only from browser. And we can't speek here about HTML5 like a language.

All your questions are about javascript.

  1. Want bytecode inside <object> ... </object>? Use Chrome Native Client.
  2. Want to hide your code? Use any obfuscator.
  3. Modern javascript engines has just-in-time compilation. And there is the "subset" of javascript like asm.js which is just 2x slower then C++.

Upvotes: 0

Explosion Pills
Explosion Pills

Reputation: 191749

There is a bit of a fundamental problem with your question in that HTML5 is not really a thing. It's hard to compare it to Java or Flash, which are programming languages. It is possible to create interactive applications using HTML and JavaScript without using any of the features of HTML5. This seems to happen a lot, but for simplicity these are often referred to as HTML5 applications -- especially by non-technical people.

1) I would say that JavaScript can be as powerful as the other compiled languages you talk about even on a webpage -- especially with the power of <canvas>. You have found that HTML5 has won for a reason. In my opinion, it can do what the others can do and is simpler to implement.

There is nothing that forbids you from including Flash objects of Applets alongside JavaScript, though, and they can even interact.

2) There is nothing that prevents all of your HTML/JavaScript from being downloaded in the browser and viewed in plain text, although it can be obfuscated with tools such as Uglify.

It's also possible to download and decompile swfs and jars from a web interface, so compiling does not necessarily offer you a lot of protection anyway. Your code would be protected by Copyright (at least in the US) and you could use a license the MIT license too.

3) All the work is done by the browser. The client will only need a browser to run your code, but some browsers do not support some features you may want to use. This especially applies to older browsers.

There are a ton of frameworks and libraries out there for creating rich HTML/JavaScript applications, but these are just are mostly just JavaScript files.

Upvotes: 1

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