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What's The Greatest Web Software Ever?
An anonymous reader writes "What's The Greatest Web Software Ever Written?, Charlie Babcock of InformationWeek asks, in his follow up to last year's widely read list of greatest software period. The winner then was BSD 4.3. The new Top 12 list is a little funky in that it doesn't distinguish between apps, sites, and controls — XMLHttpRequest object set — is one of the winners. It includes many of the usual suspects, like Digg and AIM, along with some unexpected winners. (like World of Warcraft) The number one choice however, Apache server, is arguably correct."
Well, if you take "ever" literally... the greatest software ever hasn't been written yet.. :)
Or just another blogger? Besides the fact that it's nearly impossible to read his article, and the fact that it lumps dissimilar items together on a top-# list, his omissions make this a waste of time. Top "web software" and no NCSA Mosaic or Netscape Navigator (1.0)? Also, I thought the WELL was a BBS/Shell account provider?
Pass the Macromedia^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Adobe kool-aid, wouldya?
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Oh, wait. Wrong place for THAT.
So why Netscape 1.0? Why not either Mosaic (earlier) or Firefox (better)?
The article's writer appears to have gotten this confused. As I'm sure everyone on this site knows, WoW isn't a Web application - it doesn't listen on port 80 and doesn't communicate with web browsers (barring a few status pages - you certainly can't play the game that way.) AOL Instant Messenger wasn't originally either. There are now web-based interfaces available, but he's not talking about those, he's talking about the original service which - again - didn't listen on port 80 and couldn't communicate with web browsers.
Amusingly, his screenshot of "Hotmail" runs into the exact same problem. He's apparently decided to take a screenshot of someone using Microsoft Outlook to log into Hotmail - not a web browser. While you can obviously use Hotmail with a web browser, and I suspect the majority of people do, that screenshot is particularly badly chosen.
Bad, bad writer.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
It's the most useful page I ever use. I can use it to plan bike trips, drives to friends houses or bars, bike races, etc. I also use it for looking up businesses in the area, and for phone number lookups. An example of 'web 2.0' being used as the best method to create the service.
I'm with you apart from number 4 and 5.
Flash is, for my 2 cents, The Worst web app out there. It breaks usability - it's totally client side and screw the user. It's resource hogging and 98% of the time it's being used where it need never be - it's only the other 2% that's valid legitimate use.
Shockwave is much the same - although mercifully less used and abused than Flash.
Please understand that, in all seriousness, I value Flashblock / Firefox as the singular most valuable software combination currently available on Earth. I love those Flashblock guys, they gave me the web back.
Personally I always found Digg to be *very* OK, nothing special, mainly shovelware stories. Perhaps it's because I discovered it around September 2006.
Unfortunately, after the whole HD-DVD key revolt, I decided Digg was just far too childish to bother with anymore. Sure, at one point Digg was probably very good, but after 1st May 2007, it died (for me anyway).
As with every piece of software, it'd be perfect if it wasn't for the users.
Summation 2
No Napster = No DSL/Cable, No YouTube, No ...