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Re: The Philosophy of RIFE
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Posted: Aug 24, 2006 3:45 AM
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> I don't agree with that at all. In a desktop application > you're not supposed to be able to access any intermediate > step (page / url) directly. You don't bookmark them and > you certainly don't pass the locations around.
Choosing a specific page to view is no different than choosing a specific window from a list (as a concept, not as an implementation). But most web applications, especially intranet ones, are most like desktop apps rather than what you describe. And even if the app needs to be like that, again there is no need to mess with non-code.
> You don't > have to deal with latency issues when performing UI > interactions.
It depends on the interactions.
> You don't have to handle the fact that there > should be printable versions of most pages.
A printable version of a page means the page is informational only - hardly an application.
> You don't have > to be paranoid about who's using the application or about > privacy since you can mostly rely on the OS security > model.
That's irrelevant to how you code the application.
You don't have to deal with different browsers that > render the same information,
Exactly. Using an API prevents you from doing that.
But the point of this discussion is 'what API'. An all-Java API (where 'Java' can be substituted with your language or preference) is certainly easier to handle than several different languages.
> nor do you have to handle the > fact that people can disable essential features like > Javascripts, Java, Flash, Images, ... I can continue a > long time like that.
Again, the API can take care of that.
> > Apart from all these, a lot of people expect different > things from websites than what they expect from desktop > applications. I have seen from experience that apart from > very well defined applications (like web mail, chat, ...). > Most site visitors don't understand what they can do with > a web UI that functions (almost, but not quite) like a > desktop UI. A lot of people are totally lost.
Oh, come on. You are exagerrating. Most computer users are able to use almost all functions after a while in a well-designed application, either web or desktop.
> This makes > sense, since it's essentially an information architecture > that's now being migrated to new functionalities that are > many times just bolt-ons. Almost none of the habits that > took them years to acquire to work with desktop > applications can be applied, so why would they understand > the UI?
I disagree. The habits of clicking commands, writing text, clicking to focus, opening and closing forms is just the same in web and desktop apps.
> That is wishful thinking and I've never seen any complex > web design that doesn't need carefully crafted HTML, CSS > and Javascript to be able to work on the majority of > browsers.
Why don't you check out Echo2 then? I am not in anyway advertising it, but it is the only Java API I know that does not require anything else than Java.
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