RE: What do I use?

From: Paul Raulerson

I certainly do not buy that the web and its tools are good enough today.
They are --> maybe <--- about as good as running applications on an very
early System36. For subjective proof, look at the very sophisticated and
cutting edge tools Google has now made available - wordprocessing and
spreadsheet in particular. They are good, but not many people are throwing
out Word and Excel to change to them. The standalone applications are
simply *better*.

I've been avoiding this discussion, but I think I'll throw in my coupla
coppers just for the fun of it. First, the web is plenty good enough and
far better than the System/36. I've been modernizing 5250 applications and
using a browser interface and it frankly rocks. EVERY user that uses PSC
enabled software thinks it's better than the 5250 application it replaces,
and these are some really good 5250 interfaces.

The only people who don't like the web are heads-down data entry clerks, and
they're absolutely right; for them it's better.

To take that further, to do much of anything intensive with a web
interface,
such as play a video, you have to have locally installed software anyway.

Got nothin' to do with what we're talking about, which is business
applications. Business applications don't need all them fancy wijits. Yes,
there are certain high-end applications that may benefit from streaming
video, but they're few and far between.

I do not even agree that web interfaces are the "way of the future." We
are
entering a time where CPUs are both plentiful and powerful, memory is
increasing by leaps and bounds, and everything is pretty much connected by
broadband. This is an ideal and fertile environment for locally hosted
interfaces to remote information and applications. (Broadband will only
get faster and better.)

And the browser provides exactly that!

Now, that's not to say that there aren't currently some niche applications
for a richer UI. But it's my belief that the browser will be the delivery
mechanism for that rich UI; we're already seeing it today. But even if I'm
wrong, the traditional fat client is still dead: the idea of downloading
business logic to your machine and then executing it locally is simply

Joe