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I'm not sure I would classify this as a 'complex' webapp. Not to downplay the work that has gone on here, which is great, but when I think of a complex web app

I'm not sure I would classify this as a 'complex' webapp. Not to downplay the work that has gone on here, which is great, but when I think of a complex web app I think of one that has dozens or hundreds of screens, dozens or hundreds of dialogs, extensive use of user roles/permissions, etc.

laumars 13y ago
to be fair, the whole of their site seems responsive, not just the landing page. It also seems to load pretty quickly over 3G - so they've been economical with the resources tool. My biggest concern would have been that they went overboard with Javascript libraries to make the page map equally well on the mobile as it does on the desktop - only to forget that mobile bandwidth is generally shite. But that doesn't seem to be an issue here. All in all, they've done an impressive job.
twistedpair 13y ago
All the examples were "basic" not "complex" at all. I assume the author's never seen an enterprise app before.
Shorel 13y ago
OTOH, I believe something like Gmail is far more complex in terms of webapps than something with a thousand boring forms.
- mberning 13y ago
  It depends on what those forms do. I think we both can agree that something like Gmail is much more complex than what was presented in the article.
  - tomhoward 13y ago
    More complex, sure, but the real point is that they're both significantly more complex than a basic text content site.
camus 13y ago
if you define complexity by the amount of admin pages, then it is not complex. You can have a basic crud app with 100 pages of CRUD forms, does it make the app "complex" ? Google Maps has 1 screen ,but all the infrastructure required to make it work is complex, and the code required to display maps is too. That's what a complex app is. Not an app with 100 screens of CRUD, reporting or whatever.
- markkanof 13y ago
  It doesn't make it complex in the sense of logical complexity, or back end infrastructure complexity, but it does make it complex in terms of user interface layout. Hundreds of pages with thousands of fields. When building these kind of enterprise CRUD apps there will usually be a lot of commonalities between pages, but also there will be tons of little edge cases that only apply to a couple pages and usually need to be addressed individually. You could certainly argue that better design might eliminate those edge cases, but the reality is that designers/developers working on enterprise apps aren't usually given the opportunity to do the extra work to really work out all the kinks.
tomhoward 13y ago
He meant a rich app with complex interactions, as distinct from a basic text content site.

laumars 13y ago

to be fair, the whole of their site seems responsive, not just the landing page. It also seems to load pretty quickly over 3G - so they've been economical with the resources tool. My biggest concern would have been that they went overboard with Javascript libraries to make the page map equally well on the mobile as it does on the desktop - only to forget that mobile bandwidth is generally shite. But that doesn't seem to be an issue here. All in all, they've done an impressive job.

twistedpair 13y ago

All the examples were "basic" not "complex" at all. I assume the author's never seen an enterprise app before.

Shorel 13y ago

OTOH, I believe something like Gmail is far more complex in terms of webapps than something with a thousand boring forms.

mberning 13y ago
It depends on what those forms do. I think we both can agree that something like Gmail is much more complex than what was presented in the article.
- tomhoward 13y ago
  More complex, sure, but the real point is that they're both significantly more complex than a basic text content site.

camus 13y ago

if you define complexity by the amount of admin pages, then it is not complex. You can have a basic crud app with 100 pages of CRUD forms, does it make the app "complex" ? Google Maps has 1 screen ,but all the infrastructure required to make it work is complex, and the code required to display maps is too. That's what a complex app is. Not an app with 100 screens of CRUD, reporting or whatever.

markkanof 13y ago
It doesn't make it complex in the sense of logical complexity, or back end infrastructure complexity, but it does make it complex in terms of user interface layout. Hundreds of pages with thousands of fields. When building these kind of enterprise CRUD apps there will usually be a lot of commonalities between pages, but also there will be tons of little edge cases that only apply to a couple pages and usually need to be addressed individually. You could certainly argue that better design might eliminate those edge cases, but the reality is that designers/developers working on enterprise apps aren't usually given the opportunity to do the extra work to really work out all the kinks.

tomhoward 13y ago

He meant a rich app with complex interactions, as distinct from a basic text content site.