Slashback: Echo, Lunchbox, Questions

TodLiebeck writes "The Echo framework, which is used for creating web applications that approach the functionality of rich clients, has received some significant updates since its last showing on Slashdot. The community-developed EchoPoint component library has hit v1.0 and now provides more than 50 components such as a chart container and a rich text editor. The recently released version 1.1 of Echo is now available under the Mozilla Public License (in addition to the LGPL). More information can be found in these two announcements on TheServerSide, and this recent article in the SDTimes." shimmerkid writes "After seeing almost nothing about audiolunchbox.com in your recent story about the perfect online music store, I felt a little vindicated when I received an email newsletter from them claiming they have become the "largest independent digital music store in the world." They have added Beggars/Matador and Kill Rock Stars among others, promising a total of 500,000 tracks (at 99 cents a track for unrestricted 192 kbps MP3 and Ogg) by December, and over a million tracks in 2005. The best part is that they pay the artists 65 cents a track."

Noksagt writes "The 50 questions for Bush and Kerry that were moderated and commented on in a previous /. story have been pared down to 20.

Vote for 10 of them at The New Voters Project Presidential Youth Debate. You don't even need /. mod points--just a valid email address!"

Comments

Quote from the article makes no sense

[tomhudson]

"We're moving away from the page-based perspective of Web app development, which is great for viewing documents," Liebeck said. "When you start getting into apps, with forms and validation, the page-based model breaks down." He cited as an example an application that, if the user's entries into a form are correct, will take you to the next screen, but must return a new window and highlight the incorrect fields if the entries are in error

Maybe I'm missing something, but the example Liebeck gives contradicts his statement - it IS a page-based model, and one of the oldest ones, at that.

If he wants a REAL example of something that acts more like a program, he should get a gmail account and see how interactive THAT is.

Re:Echo: what's with all the server round trips?

[tomhudson]

I picked a couple of controls from the Echopoint demo to look at:

It takes ages to load. So what's it doing? Caching JavaScript?

It's currently doing a live demo of a server melting under the /. effect.

"The operation timed out while attempting to contact my-server-is-SO-hosed-and-so-is-my-demo.nextapp.co m"

Re:Where's the DHTML?

[AKAImBatman]

Less need for a server != you must give up the server. In the DHTML I'm working on, I'm able to send individual field to the database without refreshing the page or doing a form submit. You see, there's a hidden iFrame that's designed to communicate one field at a time. If an error occurs upon submit, the returned version of the communications page embeds an alert popup to tell the user what the error was. After the user clicks on "ok". the field is reverted back to its previous form.

Other implementations could mark the field in red and force focus until the user fixes it or hits escape. You could even embed some text in red all by changing the document via DHTML. The total amount of data that travels between the client and server? Less than a kilobyte!

Less data == less bandwidth & processing
Less bandwith & processing == more responsiveness & high load abilities
More responsiveness & high load abilities == happier clients

what's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just don't get it... all of this talk about DHTML makes no sense. I can write a series of static html files filled with all kinds of nasty JavaScript that allows my "application" to execute without a server and with what comes close to being a "rich client" experience... but what is the point? All I have is a nasty mess of tangled script code that is nearly impossible to maintain. None of these approaches (DHTML, hidden IFrames, Echo, etc.) will ever match the rich client program paradigm in user experience or maintainability. They will all always simply be scripting workarounds.

Re:Where's the DHTML?

[los furtive]

While DHTML Lemmings is a great example of the powers of DHTML, it is a poor example to contrast against a web application since it never needs to read/write from a db, nor communicate with a server.

I do agree with your point though, although I haven't tried out Echo yet, the use of RPC via iframe, xml or whatever should help avoid reloading the page, and also decrease the effort required to maintain the state of the page (when done properly).

Personally I've been using for this very purpose (and their excellent listgrid component) and have been very satisfied with it.

Echo looks cool, but...

[WhiskerTheMad]

What about XUL? I took a brief look at it a few months back, and it looked pretty good-- but I decided to wait until they had a developer GUI ('cause I'm a lazy bastard :) How does echo stack up to XUL, or would that be comparing apples to oranges?