the comments over at cnet are very ill-informed.

native client allows you to run x86 assembly code (from a c compiler or even handwritten) at native speed. that is: no vmmon, but truly native! this is very different from JIT compilation or other "high performance" runtime environments.

http://code.google.com/p/nativeclient/

combining this with o3d (http://code.google.com/apis/o3d/), high performance javascript and the html5 apis, will make this an extremely powerful platform.

only downside: the security model is rather hard to prove.

Not only those. If the native client is a go, then we have no need for any desktop applications on x86 systems, no more dll hell on client side running x86 code.

This technology maybe the stone that kills Microsoft.

-- edit -- probably we still need browser and IDE and debugger on desktop. It is hard to imagine developers wants to use web apps. But maybe we will run even a disassembler in browser...

Well, minus anything that would violate security policy. Which is actually most current desktop apps.

Yes, you are right. to access local file system. But if you read the porting guide of native client, you know there is not local file system any more. The only data they can access is same origin files.

And it seems there is no reason we need to keep files in the long run, if you buy into the hype from cloud computing.

But I guess that will be another 20 years...

Ok, I read the article and perhaps this may come across as naive but isn't that what Flash more or less is already? Aside from the fact that Flash is designed more visual animations, it certainly does have an application-style framework (Flex)... one has to wonder what is the Goog bringing here that's different/better?

The two technologies are quite different.

Flash is a platform for executing ActionScript code within a VM with a very specific feature set. It's not very fast.

NaCl is a means of executing binary code in a sandboxed environment. This means you can write an app in whatever language you like, and take full advantage of the host CPU's power. It has the potential to bring the power and functionality of desktop apps to the web, literally.

Even better: you can potentially take a desktop application that you've already written, and run it via NaCl.

No need to rewrite into Flash.

So, this is a download-manager with a heuristic malware scanner builtin and the "execute after download"-box permanently ticked?

Time to sell some of these GOOG shares.

NaCl is faster than Flash and NaCl can more easily run existing C code. (IMO NaCl >> Alchemy.)

I think Flash is running in a virtual machine, similar to JavaScript?

"Satisfied that its security underpinnings are solid"....

Wait a minute, I thought they were rather thoroughly smacked down on security? (http://www.matasano.com/log/1674/the-security-implications-o...)