[Lazarus] Firefox OS

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

Michael Schnell wrote:
> On 07/15/2013 11:03 AM, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote:
>> Michael Schnell wrote:
>>> But can an "OS" completely done in Jacascript be a valid alternate 
>>> foundation for cell phone and Tablet designs ?
>>
>> A lot of people who should know better think that the GUI is the OS. 
> That is why I put quotes around "OS". In fact iOS is BSD Unix in a 
> similar disguise.
> 
> But besides the GUI API these "OS"es provide API definitions for phone 
> stuff handling and other hardware/system resources.
> 
> With Android these API definitions are done by Java objects, No idea how 
> this is done with iOS and Firefox OS.

I think we're all writing from a position of limited practical 
experience, but I think the major issue is whether Firefox OS allows 
arbitrary binaries "backdoor" access to GUI facilities.

If a binary app can't get to the GUI, if there's no provision for binary 
(or Java) applets, and if there's no way of injecting even a transient 
bytecode binary then it might be that translating to Javascript plus 
Android-style custom-drawn controls is the only option.

> OTOH, Michael's Pascal-to-Javascript translator project comes handy in 
> that case.

But do we really want to go there? The FPC and Lazarus projects are 
stretched enough as it is, without having to get involved in Javascript 
language issues.

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]