Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » Sun researches Lively Kernel effort

January 29, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Sun researches Lively Kernel effort

TAGS: Application Development

Sun Labs is proceeding with its Lively Kernel project, a programming environment supporting desktop-style applications with rich graphics but without the installation or upgrade "hassles" of desktop applications, according to Sun.

Written in JavaScript, the intent is to have the environment run in commercial Web browsers without installation or plug-in components.

"The main goal of the Lively Kernel is to bring the same kind of simplicity, generality and flexibility to Web programming that we have known in desktop programming for 30 years, but without the installation and upgrade hassles than conventional desktop applications have," Sun said on a Web page on the project.

"The system leverages the dynamic characteristics of the JavaScript language to make it possible to create, modify and deploy applications on the fly, using tools built into the system itself," Sun said. Lively Kernel also can serve as an IDE to make the system self-sufficient.

Lively Kernel emphasizes treating Web applications as "real applications" as opposed to the document-oriented nature of most Web applications today, Sun said. "In general, we want to put programming into Web development, as opposed to the current weaving of HTML, XML and CSS documents that is also sometimes referred to as programming," Sun said.

Currently, Lively Kernel is recommended for use on the Safari browser but the project is still in the research stage. The system also has been tested on the Firefox browser.

With the project still a lab effort, it may never, in fact, come to market, according to a Sun representative. Lively Kernel is being made available as open source software to encourage further exploration.

Posted by Paul Krill on January 29, 2008 10:37 AM

RATE THIS ARTICLE: