The Web Computer and Its : A New Approach for Creating Web Applications

Sergejs Kozlovicsˇ a Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Latvia, Raina blvd. 29, LV-1459, Riga, Latvia [email protected]

Keywords: Web Computer, Web Applications, Operating System, webAppOS, Web Application Platform.

Abstract: Web applications require not only more sophisticated infrastructure than traditional single-PC applications, but also a different way of thinking, where network-specific aspects have to be considered. In this paper, we introduce the web computer concept, which factors out network-related issues and provides an illusion of a single computer with directly attached CPUs, memory, and I/O devices. By assuming the web computer and its open operating system (webAppOS) as a target platform for web applications, developers can preserve the same level of thinking as when developing classical desktop applications. With this approach, which corre- sponds to the physiology of the human brain, web applications can be created faster. Besides, the proposed web computer specification can be viewed as a standardized environment (a analog) for web applications.

1 INTRODUCTION isfied, and the OS is not able to ensure it.1 There- fore, developers of web applications have to adjust When computers were big, and programs were small, their thinking to consider multiple network nodes, programmers lived according to the assumption that a where the resources (CPUs, memory, and I/O devices) single computer (C) will be operated by a single user are physically separated. Besides, different network (U) and will be used to execute one program (P) at a nodes can have different environments (e.g., different time. We call it the three-singles assumption. From CPU architectures, operating systems, or sets of at- the times of Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, this tached devices), which adds to the complexity. assumption continued to be true when the Turing/Post To facilitate the development of web applications, machine was defined in 1930-ties, and later, when the numerous excellent platforms have been developed, Harvard and von Neumann architectures appeared in each having its own set of features and requirements. 1940-ties. Today, with the broad availability of the In- Such platforms usually factor out network-specific is- ternet and the presence of modern hardware and oper- sues (such as user management, scalability, and secu- ating systems capable of handling multiple users and rity) and provide a convenient way to share data be- being able to run thousands of concurrent tasks, the tween network nodes. The webAppOS platform, pro- assumption is not true anymore. Nevertheless, when posed in this paper, is a step further – it brings the full creating standalone desktop applications (i.e., having three-singles assumption for web application devel- C as a premise), programmers still rely on the same opers by providing an illusion of a single computer. thinking as in the three-singles assumption, since the This approach has the following benefits: OS factors out user management (U) and multitasking Psychological. It is easier for the human brain to (P). That allows programmers to concentrate on their • think about one target computer instead of multi- primary tasks, which has a positive impact on pro- ple network nodes. ductivity, since the human brain is not capable of real 1 multitasking, as recent neuroscience research reveals. The reason is simple: the OS is responsible only for di- rectly attached resources (CPU, memory, and I/O devices). If we consider web applications, the single- In both von Neumann and Harvard architectures, the net- computer part (C) of the assumption becomes unsat- work is represented by an I/O device (a network interface controller, NIC); thus, the scope of the OS is limited to one a https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7085-383X particular network node with an attached NIC.

46 Kozlovics,ˇ S. The Web Computer and Its Operating System: A New Approach for Creating Web Applications. In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies (WEBIST 2019), pages 46-57 ISBN: 978-989-758-386-5 Copyright © 2019 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved The Web Computer and Its Operating System: A New Approach for Creating Web Applications

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Figure 1: The main parts of the web computer architecture.

Technical. webAppOS provides common grounds 2.1 Web Computer Memory • for web applications and services by factoring out technical issues in the same sense as Java Virtual In the web computer, data memory differs from in- Machine does so for classical applications. struction memory (code memory), thus, resembling Supervisory. Being open-source, webAppOS fa- the Harvard architecture. The data memory is auto- • cilitates the development of web applications that matically synchronized between all involved network could be installed on a private server, thus, elimi- nodes (such as the client and the server), providing nating the risks of broken service URLs, sudden an illusion of a directly attached shared memory unit API changes, discontinued services, backdoors, (RAM analog). Code is stored, executed, and sent via and losing control on data (Stallman, 2010). the network (when necessary) by means of existing We start by defining the web computer concept, classical technologies, e.g., via the