Re: OT: windoze woes and full rant mode is on


"Pete Dashwood" <dashwood@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4rcl7mFqq65eU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Nobody developing a web site wants to limit the accessibility of it,
either by browser or by any other limiting factor. It is a question of
what is viable. If I embed an ActiveX control on my web server, there is
no problem. If I try and download it to the client, there can be. If I
put JavaScript on a client page, some of the people viewing it won't see
it as intended; if I replace it with ASP on the server and dynamically
create the page, there should be no problem.

You could easily conclude that the best solution is probably to do
EVERYTHING on the web server, then simply serve up a dynamically
constructed page that suits the particular browser being used. This is the
goal I am currently trying to reach, but it certainly isn't easy.

If you do everything on the webserver, you can't implement a map that
the user can click and drag around, like Google did
(http://maps.google.com/). At best, the user would click on a "scroll left"
button, and the entire page would refresh as the new image is downloaded.

I was really hoping Java would have taken off more than it did. Using
Java Webstart, a user could click on a weblink, which would *stream* a
self-contained Java program onto the user's computer. The program is run in
a sandbox, and so it cannot for example access local files, activate the
printer or microphone, or connect to any servers except the one it was
downloaded from, unless it displays a standard confirmation box requesting
permission for this access from the user.

So security isn't a problem, but you have the full GUI functionality
available to you: tables, lists, drop down menus, etc., without resorting to
HTML+JavaScript tricks. List items can be sorted locally on the client's
computer, as opposed to sending a request to sort to the webserver, sorting
it there, and sending the results back to the client. The application being
"too big" isn't a problem either, because the application is streamed, and
thus can start running before all the code has been downloaded.

http://java.sun.com/products/javawebstart/demos.html

Try implementing the drawing program in HTML+JavaScript. It's possible,
but it'll take a lot more effort than writing it in Java.

- Oliver


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