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."

Comments

Ever ever?

[Zapotek]

Well, if you take "ever" literally... the greatest software ever hasn't been written yet.. :)

Re:Ever ever?

[Anonymous Coward]

Common, we already know the winner, it was Windows 9x. This series of OS's created the internet we know today, full of spam, botnets, popups, porn popups that come up when you least want them, and open 5 more popups if you try to close them, god forbid anyone doesn't have anti-virus software installed, eating away at their CPU and memory utilization, and no one complains anymore for having to reboot their computer just to close a browser window.

So thank you Windows, we have been raped by your presence and wish you a mantel in hell.

Re:Ever ever?

[Stellian]

Well, if you take "ever" literally... the greatest software ever hasn't been written yet.. :)

You are wrong!
The greatest software in the world has indeed been written, and the importance of this breakthrough cannot be overestimated.

Is this guy a "real" journalist?

[EveryNickIsTaken]

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?

WoW was robbed

[Anonymous Coward]

WoW is far better than Apache.

Re:WoW was robbed

[omeomi]

What is WoW even doing on this list? In what way is WoW on the "web"? On the internet, yes, but I've yet to see somebody playing WoW on a web page of some sort. Do we really have to start calling every internet technology the "web"? Maybe this is explained in the article, but I'm tired of loading page after page of advertisements just to find out...

My List

[queenb**ch]

1 - Apache - still one of the most popular web servers out there. One of the most flexible and adaptable. It just rocks.
2 - Routed - the router daemon that, in some shape, form or fashion, runs probably 90% of the internet. Without routers to move the traffic, the rest of it just a moot point
3 - Netscape 1.0 - The idea of a GUI browser is fundamental to how we experience the web today. Without that, who needs dynamic objects like Flash since you wouldn't be able to see them.
4 - Flash - The idea that you could put moving pictures, sound, and video on a web page is a pretty fundamental one that gets largely over looked.
5 - Shockwave - The idea that could put games and other interactive media on a web page is another pretty fundamental idea that gets largely overlooked.
6 - CSS - Stylesheets - what a blessing to every web master everywhere. Praise the Lord and pass the wine.

I'm kinda surprised that more of my list didn't make it. Oh well......

2 cents,

Queen B.

Re:My List

[FooAtWFU]

Flash, I'll grant, begrudgingly (ack), but.... Flash *AND* Shockwave? And both of them on top of CSS? What are you smoking? Aside from the fact that it's not really a Piece of Software (and if it's there, why isn't HTML on your list, btw?)... as long as it's there, it ought to easily outrank both.

Pass the Macromedia^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Adobe kool-aid, wouldya?

Re:My List

[Anonymous Coward]

3 - Netscape 1.0 - The idea of a GUI browser is fundamental to how we experience the web today.

So why Netscape 1.0? Why not either Mosaic (earlier) or Firefox (better)?

Re:My List

[owlnation]

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.

Re:My List

[PenguSven]

You meant flash is server side? well then you're clearly wrong. however i do agree that flash is clearly NOT a great innovation 90% of the time.

Re:My List

[nuintari]

2 - Routed - the router daemon that, in some shape, form or fashion, runs probably 90% of the internet. Without routers to move the traffic, the rest of it just a moot point

You are kidding right? You don't actually think that routed runs anything major do you? For starters, unix systems are not routers, they can be used as such, I use one at home. But for a backbone connection with millions of packets per second, they are a poor choice. They cannot keep up with a good cisco or foundry router.

Next, routed implements RIP, an interior routing protocol, for use within one AS, you _never_ use RIP for external routes to other networks, that is where BGP comes into play. Might I also mention that RIP is an ancient interior routing protocol, with serious limitations that make it a poor choice for all but the simplest networks. Most modern networks run on OSPF for internal routing, RIP is just pathetic.

I don't know anyone who still uses routed for anything serious, and certainly not the 90% figure you made up. I doubt it accounts for 1% of 1% of all routed traffic. It is just an old bat that has fallen by the wayside. Even networks that still use RIP for a segment or all of their interior routing use a better implementation of RIP than the one in routed.

If you want to use a UNIX system for a router, I suggest you look into OpenBSD's OpenOSPF and OpenBGP.

Re:My List

[hobo sapiens]

I'd say Firefox, and <>.

The fact that Firefox 1) allows extensions and 2) has such an awesome community of extension developers, makes it the swiss army knife of the web.

Yes, software like Apache and IIS and PHP and MySQL help make the web. But Firefox allows it be browsed and developed.

Anyone can appreciate the browsing aspect by using Firefox with <<insert extension>>

But the angle I am coming from is from that of a web developer. Without Firebug and the Tidy HTML validator, it would take me twice as long to develop good code and debug it. At work I regularly call Firefox my #1 development tool. I could write all my HTML, PHP, ColdFusion, Javascript, PL/SQL in a Notepad and SQL*Plus if someone were to take jEdit and Oracle SQL Developer away from me. But without Firefox debugging javascript would be a total pain, validating markup would be a pain, and profiling xmlhttprequests would be a pain. Firefox does all of this for me while, you know, actually using my web pages. I'd choose Firefox over any extremely expensive development tool out there, at least for web dev.

Re:My List

[0xdeadbeef]

Flash revolutionized nothing. Flash is the antithesis of AJAX, not its progenitor. Otherwise you might as well credit Java, because far more serious browser-based applications were written with that technology.

Though I supposed they deserve credit for being so doggedly cross-platform and cross-browser. YouTube succeeded thanks to Flash, because they were not beholden to Microsoft or to Real or to Apple.

The Java Platform

[thammoud]

not just the language is what is attractive to the millions of developers. While the language is nice, the fantastic libraries that are included with the VM are what makes the big difference. Is it perfect? Far from it. No platform even comes close to the library support provided by the Java platform. With the new open source license, things will only get better. Thank you Sun.

Re:The Java Platform

[tweakt]

Say, can I use an interpreted scripting language on the JVM? Which one would be most suited?

Sure, take your pick:

• Rhino Javascript engine - built in to Java SE 6
• Groovy - An agile dynamic language for the Java Platform
• BeanShell: Lightweight Scripting for Java
• The Sleep Scripting Project

I'm sure there's others...

Anything with a spellchecker!

[gardyloo]

Oh, wait. Wrong place for THAT.

"Web" and "Internet" aren't the same thing

[ZorbaTHut]

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.

Re:free advert for Vista ..

[Timesprout]

Thanks for mentioning Vista a couple of times in your post. We hear in the Vista marketing team really appreciate it when Vista gets a mention. I inspires us in the Vista family to really work to make Vista the best Vista that it can be.

Thanks again for mentioning Vista. Now I'm off to sit on my balcony with a cold beer and enjoy the Vista.

Yours etc
Vista Marketing Team

Google Maps gets my vote

[SCHecklerX]

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.

Re:Google Maps gets my vote

[teh kurisu]

I wouldn't be surprised. Directions from Edinburgh to my house involve me committing suicide a quarter of a mile from home.

Duke Nukem Forever

[gregger]

I mean, it's going to be! Right?

Well, it has to be to me anyhow... ever since my copy of BLAZEMONGER actually self destructed (taking my Amiga with it) because I *thought* about making a backup copy of it in case it got worn out.

That's copy protection! At least I didn't have to call their customer support.

TTFN

original CERN client and server, NCSA Mosaic

[davidwr]

They got the ball rolling. Without them, who knows what direction things would have taken. Maybe we'd all be digging Gopher holes instead of wandering the Web.

Digg, really?

[Rik Sweeney]

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.

Autocad is clearly the most important web software

[Timesprout]

How else do you think Al Gore was able to design all the tubes that several of the internets run on!

Re:PHP all the way.

[swsuehr]

Actually no, Apache isn't popular because of PHP. Apache was quite popular well before PHP was even *invented*. Apache + Perl as a development stack was quite popular prior to PHP and still is to this day.

The LAMP stack was simply the *only* way to develop web apps and definitely didn't become popular as an alternative to ASP. Rather, ASP was developed as an alternative to the Apache stack.

Synergy2

[stevemulligan]

I love this software more every day. http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ Control many comps with a single keyboard/mouse over your local lan. All they need is bidirectional support... Most of the software on that top ten list has annoyed me at one point in time. Synergy is the complete opposite.

Less click, more read

[JonasH]

Single page version of the story.

Napster, Baby, Napster!

[theodp]

No Napster = No DSL/Cable, No YouTube, No ...

Mosaic!

[Tablizer]

Mosaic is what "triggered" the popularity of the Web. Apache simply built up on an existing concept and would have happened in some form anyhow because it was driven by a known need. Without Mosaic, the web may never have happened, letting commercial networks such as Compuserve and Prodigy come to dominate instead. Same with search engines: they existed in various forms and AltaVista and Google simply improved them. (One could argue that Gopher preceded Mosiac, but Gopher itself wasn't widely accepted.)

Google Spreadsheets

[Kohath]

Google Spreadsheets is the most technically impressive web app I've seen.

google.com?

[Plutonite]

The server side scripts and all related software running behind the google.com engine is probably the greatest package of web software ever put together, in terms of usefulness. My 2 cents.

Well, hello!

[nocynic]

What about SourceForge? I mean the concept is neat right? Write your own code, share it around get people involved. Most of the popular applications are available off sourceforge and are active till date!

Social Networking sites may be the talk of the town, but from a developers perspective (behind the scene) I would have to say SourceForge is one of the best things that happened!

Who said who to what now?

[fahrbot-bot]

The winner then was BSD 4.3.

Of course, he means 4.3BSD.

[Now get offa my lawn youngster!]

OpenSSH

[BlueParrot]

Say what you want about Theo and the obscure license policies of OpenBSD, but OpenSSH is in my opinion one piece of software which is simply better than sliced bread ( server as well as client). Since I was introduced to it I use it on a daily basis and it has been rock solid since the first login. It's the kind of software that inspires you to write software yourself. Two thumbs up.

Re:This List = Fail.

[FishWithAHammer]

The WELL? I'm a college student who was six years old at the time of Project Sunfire and even I know what the WELL is. Altavista was better than Google is now, during Altavista's heyday. Hotmail was also around about seven years before Gmail and popularized things considerably more important than an amount of storage nobody would ever use up. (Things like--you know--webmail itself.

Why hasn't Slashdot banned the twelve-year-olds from commenting yet? Shouldn't Slashdot have a fucking COPPA mechanism?

Re:free advert for Vista ..

[eMbry00s]

You are about to enjoy yourself.

Cancel / Allow

Skip the Ads, here's the picks

[Anonymous Coward]

In the same order as the author used in the 7th ad-filled page*:

12. AOL Instant Messenger
11. Digg
10. Hotmail
9. World Of Warcraft
8. Wikipedia
7. XMLHttpRequest object set
6. Amazon.com
5. eBay
4. The Well
3. Craigslist
2. AltaVista
1. Apache

*If you want to say thank you, mod up -- and thank YOU.

Re:Skip the Ads, here's the picks

[silent_artichoke]

Those are not the greatest Web software ever written. No, those are just a tribute.