The implicit frame of the implicit frame might be "so let's move everything into the browser".
Look at it from the perspective of someone who just wants to use a computer for something a computer could do in 1997. Doing it in a browser today would still sometimes be a downgrade from doing it in a (well written) native application in 1997.
I am eager to seeing how much of a difference asm.js can make.
I totally agree that doing something ins browser today would be worse than the 1997 era native app equivalent....
... but to agree with a sibling comment: wow-- you can just download the code in, like 10 min? And I can read/modify it it because it doesn't even have to be compiled to run?
These were both two very big limitations on my user experience in 1997...
I'm not saying that we should move back to having everything run on a mainframe, but I suppose that in response to the "so what" I was responding to I offer "wow, man: there is something way different going on in a port of a technology than there is in the original."
Look at it from the perspective of someone who just wants to use a computer for something a computer could do in 1997. Doing it in a browser today would still sometimes be a downgrade from doing it in a (well written) native application in 1997.
I am eager to seeing how much of a difference asm.js can make.