Web programming tools (Dan Shafer)

[Richard Gaskin]

Sadhunathan Nadesan wrote:

> | > I am SO interested in hearing what other people think.  Even though
> | > the browser is a lousy UI, the world has come to accept it, so, the
> | > client is aways right, eh?
> | 
> | Depends on what you're doing with it:
> | 
> | <http://www.fourthworld.com/embassy/articles/netapps.html>
> | 
> 
> Hi Richard,
> 
> Yes, I have read your paper, very nice.
> 
> At least for our clients, it doesn't seem to matter that we could
> build a much better mousetrap by escaping the browser, but someday
> I hope that net enabled aps like MC/RR gain more accpetance.  Right
> now they say they just want to be able to go into an Internet cafe
> anywhere on the planet and access their stuff, in the familiar way
> they are used to.  sigh.

And their decision may not be a bad one for what they're doing.

For very small tasks that need to be done from any number of locations that
cannot be known in advance, it's hard to beat the ease of simply booting the
nearest Web browser and doing it.

It's the larger tasks that are done repeatedly from the same machine that
suffer from Web-based implementations.

And sometimes even those in the latter category can't get the perceived
sexiness of Web-based implementations out of their head long enough to think
clearly about what they're asking for.  But for those I offer this
challenge:

Toss MS Word for a week and use a Web form for all word processing.
If anyone dared to accept such a challenge I suspect they'd run screaming
back to the desktop by day two.

Besides, why are their employees spending work hours hanging out at Internet
cafes? :)

-- 
 Richard Gaskin 
 Fourth World Media Corporation
 Developer of WebMerge 2.2: Publish any database on any site
 ___________________________________________________________
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