An app is really just a glorified web-UI to a server back-end that does the actual work. Same thing with Netflix.
It may seem unglamorous, maybe, but true. HTML5, Cascading Stylesheets, jQuery, JSON, maybe XML, OAUTH/OAUTH2, and some kind of a web API documentation -- an "App stack in a box," so to speak. Alternative to the HTTP silo, there are some native-platform appplications and application toolkits around, primarily for mobile embedded computing platforms, albeit -- not a lot of popular support for "old" distributed computing models, such as
CORBA and/or
OpenDCE.
If there may be a thesis developed as towards a an app framework for FreeBSD -- new to the forums, noticing it's an off topic thread, LoL I've been reading about the
Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL) for instance, and Samsung's
Tizen project. I wonder if anyone could approach Samsung with a proposal for developing a Tizen release on a FreeBSD kernel and FreeBSD base system? I think that it could serve to lend some interest towards embedded computing with FreeBSD, if not adding a kind of new quality to FreeBSD on desktop PCs.
As a short overview about the Tizen platform: Tizen applies EFL on a Linux kernel, as in the Samsung Z smartphone and with some of Samsung's In Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) and TV platforms. EFL is applied in Tizen, along with the
Caro UI framework (GTK implementation). Tizen also offers a Qt5 development model. It allows for development in C, C++, certainly also Java -- with Java, as in reference to the OpenMobile
Android Compatibility Layer for the Tizen platorm. In regards to the C interface for EFL and Cairo, I've noticed that it could serve to allow for portability into interpreted programming languages -- such as Ruby, Lua, and PERL -- and the interpreted/compiled language that is Common Lisp.
At a projects level, Tizen is pretty well transparently managed. The
Tizen IRIS web application provides an overview about the source code level of Tizen components. There's also a
Tizen Wiki.
Supposedly, the HTML GUI model allows for rapid application development. I don't personally believe as if it represents an ideal model for application of computing resources, however, not insomuch as in regards to human computer interface (HCI) applications, or LAN-oriented systems. I believe it creates a silo in the shape of HTTP, moreover. I would not wish to seem too forward in proposing any more of a LAN-oriented application development model, however. Kerberos, LDAP, basically all of UNIX network architectures -- maybe it's hard for startups to spin those at SXSW. I think they're quite worth a gander, so to speak.
