Computer science arguments are always the cutest things. Take for instance Alex Komoroske, product manager for the Chromium Project at Google. He had an argument with a friend over whether the Web platform, we can assume he means Chrome in this case, could compete with traditional development platforms. He was told to prove it and we can only assume Koromoske said, “Challenge accepted.”
In response, Koromoske created three videos about the Web platform to show his friend and the world what the Web is truly capable of. The theme of these videos is “Meet the Web platform agains for the first time.”
The first video is called “Building on foundations” and it tackles the building blocks of the Web that Chrome is making simpler for programmers and developers. It’s an interesting look at what Chrome can do and will be doing in the future that will change how you interact with the Web.
The second video “Learning from other platforms” looks at how Chrome implements some of the features from Android. This allows Chrome to provide the same features of Android that allows apps to communicate with each other without actually being connected.
The third video “On the cutting edge” is the most interesting video of the three. It shows the future of the Web platform and how it will handle advanced tools like webcam access, audio APIs and the use of WebGL for complex 3D rendering.
While Google is obviously pushing open Web standards like HTML5 and CSS, it’s important to note that the Web is made up of different platforms all powering the content we enjoy. The future of HTML5 isn’t exactly known yet, but these tools definitely make it seem more than capable of competing with Flash.
Game developers should especially take note of the native client Google has developed for Chrome. This allows game developers to easily port pre-existing code to the Chrome platform. GDC award winner Bastion was ported to Chrome last year using these tools and there are more being added all the time.
While I’m more of a Firefox man myself, I have to give it up to Google and their Chrome team for the advancements they’re making in this field. The Web ecosystem is all about borrowing from each other and making each respective Web browser better in the process.
As an aside, I would like to point out that all of these amazing demos were running on a Mac. As we mentioned previously, it seems that a lot of Googlers don’t seem to use their own company’s Chromebooks all that much.
