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It's like there's a culture of cultivated ignorance around web apps. The pop culture of web development strikes me as a spastic, young programmer who flits fro

It's like there's a culture of cultivated ignorance around web apps. The pop culture of web development strikes me as a spastic, young programmer who flits from framework to framework, always in search of some magic elixir to make application development more pleasant. They know it isn't quite right, but they don't want to give up the hard-earned, arcane JS knowledge they've used. Nor are they willing to sit down and admit that, maybe they need to sit down and learn a thing or two about how to structure programs better (as we all do)! Instead, it's emotional blog posts and bikeshedding over inane topics (vim, Coffeescript), rather than looking at the deeper issue - the utter mediocrity of the tools they're using.

corresation 14y ago
I've been doing software development very successfully for closing on two decades. I've developed in 680x0 assembly, x86 assembly, C, C++, MFC, ATL, Java, .NET and on and on in the fat-client space. I've watched with interest and anticipation as various parties have brought out the Next Big Thing. I am also a strong advocate of web apps and have been for a long time. Reality has proven out my position as, as has mentioned, the web won the presentation tier (clearly this has nothing at all to do with data processing or database or system programming or anything of the sort). In any discussion on web apps they are always held against an illusory foe that is all capable and all perfect. Let's get specific however -- I love Rdio and love their web app. They came out with a new .NET client so I of course gave it a whirl. Worse, slower interface. Constantly updating (in big monolithic chunks). Consuming hundreds of MBs of memory. I'm not trying to criticize specifically Rdio, but I guarantee that initiative started with someone slamming the web and its crazy mishmash of standards, promising that they'd do something that would exploit the full power of the client. The result was something much worse, holding the single and only advantage of "not in a web browser" (for what that's worth?). Amazon has fielded various trials with various rich apps (they usually partner with Microsoft), but you've never seen them because they never have a compelling story, coming with enough detriments that it outweighs the benefits. My local library system used to have a whole nasty Java interfacing tool that was an absolutely abomination, with a horrendous rickety interface that seldom worked properly, was slow, and was a beast. They replaced it with a dramatically better web interface. Those are all just anecdotes, but they're constant across the space. Yet every post pretends that the web is a weakling that has no merit and no advantages, completely missing why it has made all of these wins against endless competitors.
paranoiacblack 14y ago
> inane topics (vim, Coffeescript) Sorry, you're going to need to elaborate here or else you're really sensationalist. Also, you can't be serious about the community not admitting we need to learn how to structure programs better, as if that were the only problem. I didn't learn that UNTIL I started working on the web.
camus 14y ago
horrible but open , and i think that matters. After the flash and silverlight fiasco , though these tools are far more powerfull , you just cant trust a private business to provide you these tools on the long run. My alternative to that mess is Haxe, and it's going to be big.

corresation 14y ago

I've been doing software development very successfully for closing on two decades. I've developed in 680x0 assembly, x86 assembly, C, C++, MFC, ATL, Java, .NET and on and on in the fat-client space. I've watched with interest and anticipation as various parties have brought out the Next Big Thing. I am also a strong advocate of web apps and have been for a long time. Reality has proven out my position as, as has mentioned, the web won the presentation tier (clearly this has nothing at all to do with data processing or database or system programming or anything of the sort). In any discussion on web apps they are always held against an illusory foe that is all capable and all perfect. Let's get specific however -- I love Rdio and love their web app. They came out with a new .NET client so I of course gave it a whirl. Worse, slower interface. Constantly updating (in big monolithic chunks). Consuming hundreds of MBs of memory. I'm not trying to criticize specifically Rdio, but I guarantee that initiative started with someone slamming the web and its crazy mishmash of standards, promising that they'd do something that would exploit the full power of the client. The result was something much worse, holding the single and only advantage of "not in a web browser" (for what that's worth?). Amazon has fielded various trials with various rich apps (they usually partner with Microsoft), but you've never seen them because they never have a compelling story, coming with enough detriments that it outweighs the benefits. My local library system used to have a whole nasty Java interfacing tool that was an absolutely abomination, with a horrendous rickety interface that seldom worked properly, was slow, and was a beast. They replaced it with a dramatically better web interface. Those are all just anecdotes, but they're constant across the space. Yet every post pretends that the web is a weakling that has no merit and no advantages, completely missing why it has made all of these wins against endless competitors.

paranoiacblack 14y ago

> inane topics (vim, Coffeescript) Sorry, you're going to need to elaborate here or else you're really sensationalist. Also, you can't be serious about the community not admitting we need to learn how to structure programs better, as if that were the only problem. I didn't learn that UNTIL I started working on the web.

camus 14y ago

horrible but open , and i think that matters. After the flash and silverlight fiasco , though these tools are far more powerfull , you just cant trust a private business to provide you these tools on the long run. My alternative to that mess is Haxe, and it's going to be big.