[richev]

True, but their FAQ addresses this:

> Our 3D rendering engine currently uses a Chrome-only technology called Native Client to power Earth Studio. However, we’re closely tracking the evolution of WebAssembly (especially threading). Stay tuned!

[burgerboy]

People here just have to hate in everything Google does eh?

[zapzupnz]

No, people hate that Google is observably becoming the next 1990s era Microsoft.

NaCl is already deprecated in favour of wasm but this thing still uses NaCl. This should just not have been released until it was ready.

Forgive the world for thinking this smells like IE and ActiveX from an infinitely scarier company with much more power than Microsoft ever had.

[SquareWheel]

It's nothing like ActiveX. Native Client was an open and modern recreation of a dying API (NPAPI). It didn't catch on, so it's being deprecated.

[zapzupnz]

Sure, but realistically, that makes no difference when (A) only one browser ever implemented it, and (B) its continued use by its originator company _despite_ deprecation last year (after its team was destaffed two years ago) still stinks of an attempt at lock-in, open source or not.

[jchw]

There are still things you can't do with the web platform alone. WebAssembly is still in its infancy, and not everything is really figured out yet. In this case, it looks like they're held back by the lack of proper threading:

>However, we’re closely tracking the evolution of WebAssembly (especially threading). Stay tuned!

It seems reasonable to get this program out and running today and move it over to WebAssembly in the future. One of the alternatives would've been to deliver a native app to every platform, but Chromium is already a native app that runs on many platforms that you can compile yourself, and then you get a security sandbox for free. Seems a better to me, frankly, especially in a world where many "desktop" apps just ship with Chromium anyways.

[burgerboy]

What a nonsense statement. Would you rather this project just not exist at all rather then use a technology specific to chrome?

It's like saying because an app using the Mac touch bar is Mac only is a terrible thing. It's not. It's how platforms work.

[zapzupnz]

You've made a bit of a logical leap in the way you've interpreted my post.

So, because I think Google shouldn't use a technology that they themselves marked as deprecated, leaving it only supported in their own browser using their own technology that only they implemented, it shouldn't exist in any way shape or form — despite the fact that wasm is already supported in Chrome and other web browsers?

Obviously, they should have just waited until they'd finished porting to wasm. The world would have survived without the NaCl version of a tool they never had before; bloods wouldn't run down the streets if we'd have had to wait a little bit longer for the only version of the tool that should have released.

> It's like saying because an app using the Mac touch bar is Mac only is a terrible thing

It's really not. The touch bar doesn't purport to be a standards-compliant technology available for every platform to access in an equitable way; apart from the fact it's only on Macs, nothing about it was ever advertised as being explicitly designed for cross-platform use.

The analogy to Chrome, a browser that is advertised as standards-compliant and even advancing standards, to the extent that it already includes wasm support, utterly falls apart.

> It's how platforms work

Chrome is not a platform, and I find myself shocked when anybody thinks so. It's as though the lessons of the past (IE, ActiveX, plugin lock-in) remain unlearnt; a new generation of people who don't know how good they've had it for so long.

Chrome is __not__ a platform; it is merely the window through which we consume the real platform: the open web.

When Google tries to push Chrome as a platform, we need to all push back. We've had one browser as a platform, and it was not good, it was unhealthy for developers as well as advancements in web technologies, and I and anybody who still has to support IE5 and IE6 do not want to see that again.

[tjpnz]

Just dead technologies that haven't gained industry wide adoption.