Re: Newbie FAQ #2: Where's the GUI?

Alessio Stalla wrote:
[Snip]
Thanks for this great post. I could not agree more. Since Ken* joined
the web app band wagon, I have been afraid I'd be the only one who
believed in good old desktop apps.

Every time I log on to GMail (which a lot of people call fast) I get
annoyed by how slow it is -- compared to my Opera 9.50. Finally we live
in an age where new software runs nice and fast on my four-year-old
laptop ... and then I should sacrifice all that for tcp/ip latencies?

Hmm. I think webapps and desktop apps aim at different objectives.
Webapps shine when you have to provide a simple, consistent interface
across operating systems (and perhaps cell phones or other devices).

There's nothing that requires the engine behind the webapps to actually be on a distant machine. Everybody has a browser, and those browsers can be remarkably consistent in what they display as the result of a bunch of code. So sure it's lowest-common-denominator in some ways, but it gets you away from a lot of OS and graphics-package-dependent issues that could otherwise bog you down before you even got started.

paul
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