The Web just sucks

Paul Watson

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

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Dario Solera

It seems you do not want to understand what I am saying, anyway: 1) the web as a set of technologies "sucks" because is a plain mess 2) applications are still nice, but require lots of effort to build because of 1) (of course users/committers don't know that)

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Paul Watson

How can you say standards are the suckage and limiter of the web and then go and say the big boys aren't even using them? And standards are important. They don't have to be followed exactly but as a general director they work very well (e.g. HTTP, HTML, CSS, ECMAScript, XML etc. are all followed enough to be usable on many systems without having to have 100% compliance.) Imagine if one browser decided not to use the HTTP standard or invented MyHTML and only supported it. Oh wait, that is .NET 3.0. Think of the scale of the web. Then think of the scale of computing as a whole. Look at all the systems on the edge of the network which are now able to talk because of the web. Imagine then that the web had no standards. It wouldn't be a web. It would be an AOL, a Microsoft Network, a Yahoo Network etc. etc. All walled gardens. Then the "web" would suck.

regards, Paul Watson Ireland FeedHenry needs you

Paul Watson

Sure but show me something better?

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Michael P Butler

You laugh, but it is my personal mission to bring rich-client development back to the interweb thingy. Or at least take back the intranet development from the web-app developers. Web Apps are built on the sand of static pages, despite all the cool workarounds that people have come up with. The thing needs reinventing from the bottom up.

Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]

Ray Kinsella

I am strangely reminded of Eric Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar, sometimes letting things grow organically is the best approach, albeit with occasional direction from W3C, after all it has managed the web to the size it is today. Funny you say it sucks, I say people are voting with their feet.

Regards Ray "Je Suis Mort De Rire" Blogging @ Keratoconus Watch

Paul Watson

Well said Ray. You said exactly what I was fumbling about for.

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Paul Watson

*shudder* How will what you come up with be any different to the numerous projects that have attempted, and failed, already? How will it be different from XAML and .NET for instance? I'd rather see peoples efforts be directed at evolving the web than trying to overthrow it.

regards, Paul Watson Ireland FeedHenry needs you

Sceptic Mole

Funny indeed: 'The Web sucks, let's return to Fat Clients on Vista!' Posted on an Online Web Forum! :-D

Michael P Butler

Well, I was thinking of putting my effort into XAML and .NET based apps. Whilst it would be nice to evolve the web, eventually every house built on sand gets washed away. Too many of the web technologies are being abused beyond their original limitations. That doesn't make me convinced about its future. If the standards bodies can't even secure SMTP and stop the spammers - I can't see them coming up with a solid foundation for building the complex web-apps. Most of what we've got are (very) creative hacks around the problems. Maybe one day the tools will be good enough to abstract the application developer away from the holes, but until that day web-apps are either going to be very poor or the preserve of the people who can afford to spend the time writing code to get around the fraility of the underlying technology.

Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]

Mindflow

If you find web app building painful, which I agree it can be: 1) build interfaces in Flash 2) or use an app like TopStyle Pro which can help define CSS. In this app you can select which CSS level you want, and which browsers to support. (not perfect solution to problem, but helps a lot) 3) or force your user to use a certain client for your application, like MS do with Hotmail and Windows Update. It's not too much to ask when it's only one or two applications. 4) or get someone from rent a coder to worry about it for you heh ;) Word of advice, when setting sizes/widths/heights use Pixels in CSS for everything where you can. Why?... Coz it helps make proportions look the same on all monitors and resolutions. I tried using points, small/medium/etc... it never works out properly. I figure if someone is using 1600x1200 resolution on a small screen, they deserve not to read the text properly ;)

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Unplug your network cable for a week. One week from now, come back here and tell us more about how suck the web is.

NormDroid

Laugh you may young padewan, but the future may have a few surprices for you, as you know from the IT industry, nothing is set in stone.

We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them. Steve Jobs

Paul Watson

Do you really think a proprietary system from Microsoft is going to come to dominate the web in the next 5 to 10 years? That web-apps will fall away to be replaced by desktop applications with internet smarts? Rich clients will be supporting players for web-apps. The huge numbers of web-mail users show that people are quite happy working through a browser. It is simpler for them to register on GMail or Hotmail than to download and run client software.

regards, Paul Watson Ireland FeedHenry needs you

Ashley van Gerven

Fair enough, browser discrepancies suck big time. However, have you given any thought to the alternative - imagine *NOTHING* got implemented in ANY browser until EVERYONE agrees that is the correct way to do it... we would all be using text-based browsers or something archaic like that! X| Out of interest - were you doing web development 6-odd years ago, when Netscape 4 had to be supported. Now THAT was painful. Sure, back then we didn't have to worry about AJAX complexities etc... but just getting a static page to render the same in IE & NN was about as much fun as being dragged backwards thru a cactus garden! :)

"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza

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Duncan Edwards Jones

Desktop development...I'd say that is much better.

'--8<------------------------ Ex Datis: Duncan Jones Merrion Computing Ltd

Gary Wheeler

Hmmm. Haven't had our coffee this morning, have we? :-D

Software Zen: delete this;

Paul Watson

I'm not really sure desktop development is better for an app that say replicates the Code Projects' functionality. Serving millions of users with full linking, search, advertising, email notification, editorial control etc. You'd need some kind of P2P engine or a lot of web-services on a central server and the desktop app would need complicated synching and conflict resolution technology. Much of that comes free with a web app. Desktop technology is good for a Word clone or an email client. I imagine the cost of developing a Flickr or del.icio.us clone with desktop technology would be far higher and a good deal harder than with web technology. The web has been built to support those types of apps and it works well for it. It has its problems but it is built that way while desktop technology isn't. The tools and technologies are different. They grew up differently. Sure, web dev has plenty of problems but it is a lot more than just some Ajax hacked onto a HTML and DOM base. Desktop dev is good for desktop apps. Web dev is good for web apps. Both are starting to impinge on the other and we need some new tools for that grey area but desktop dev isn't that.

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Dario Solera

No. :cool: Actually, I was not doing development at all.

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Dario Solera

Actually, I had two espresso. :-D

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