The Case Against Web Apps

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister offers five reasons why companies should re-consider concentrating their development efforts on browser-based apps. As McAllister sees it, Web apps encourage a thin-client approach to development that concentrates far too much workload in the datacenter. And while UI and tool limitations are well known, the Web as 'hostile territory' for independent developers is a possibility not yet fully understood. Sure, Web development is fast, versatile, and relatively inexpensive, but long term, the browser's weaknesses might just outweigh its strengths as an app delivery platform."

Comments

Decentralization?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought decentralization was supposed to be a good thing, the whole motivation behind having personal computers to begin with but, in the age of web apps everywhere, we seem to be returning to the days of the totalitarian, you'll-do-it-our-way-and-like-it data center (mainframe) model.

Re:Decentralization?

[MightyYar]

I thought decentralization was supposed to be a good thing

It has its good and bad points, like most things in life.

the whole motivation behind having personal computers to begin with

The original motivation was geeks playing around. The main reason they originally started showing up in businesses was VisiCalc, which simply wasn't available in any other form except chalk boards.

we seem to be returning to the days of the totalitarian, you'll-do-it-our-way-and-like-it data center (mainframe) model.

Except we aren't. Even a netbook is smarter than a TTY terminal. Plus, with the internet you aren't tied to a single mainframe. You can do your web email with Google, your web search with Yahoo, and your web word processing with Microsoft. The old mainframe way would be if Comcast supplied email, search, and document creation and you did not have a choice to go out and use other providers' services instead.

What you are seeing is a move towards web apps where it makes sense (email, document sharing, social networking, etc.), and people sticking with local applications where it doesn't make sense to go to the web (video or photo editing, most office documents, etc.) - anything where the bandwidth or latency requirements become too much of a bottleneck.

SQL?

[spikedvodka]

in this modern day-and-age, most stuff is just data anyways, and that is all database. Moving to a true client architecture, oh wait, all the data is still stored centrally, and most reports are all done via stored procedures.

Even with true clients, much data processing is still done in the datacenter. maybe some advanced analysis is done on other machines with a data dump, but still... it's all data

True, but people will not listen

[gweihir]

While I think the arguments against web-apps are valid, it is the newest trend and people will not listen. It will require a few very expensive catastrophies, before something happens. And then people will still not undterstand what the problem is, just that there were expensive catastrophies.

By now I believe most technological trends are not rational.

Re:No Shit.

[MightyYar]

The fact that the different browsers render basic sites differently should be warning enough.

Why would switching to a native app help you here? If the user can't be persuaded to install a compatible web browser, what makes you think that they will install a standalone application?

Keyboard shortcuts and CLI

[sbillard]

My biggest complaint about browser/web apps is the inconsistent or non-existent ability to navigate the app with the keyboard.
While fat client apps can have messed up tab stops, they're generally better than their web-based counterparts. A CLI is even better allowing for things to be done in bulk/batch.

I've got over 100 buttons right at my finger tips. I shouldn't need 2 more that roll around (FPS mouselook not withstanding). Let me ALT+whatever and TAB my way around.

YMMV.

Mobility is the factor

[ballwall]

Right now web apps are king because they're always only the nearest computer away, and work on almost everything.

We're getting close to devices that provide the same functionality in a mobile form factor. Once everyone has an iphone like device that has a standard development environment we'll likely see a resurgence of local apps. But that's probably a years away at best.

Right now, you can either develop for the web, which will work everywhere, or write one app in Win32/.Net, one in Objective C for Mac, one in Java with Blackberry specific apis, one in Objective C for iPhone, one in [whatever palm is up to], one in .net for winmobile, etc, etc etc.

The only reason client side apps were ever written was because you could be fairly sure windows was your target, or it simply wasn't feasible to centralize and so you forced a standard environment.

There's no single platform anymore, and probably won't be for a while (and when it comes it'll look a lot like a web browser), so the only viable option is web based.

Does it suck? Yes and no. It's definitely better than debugging an app on 40 different platform/cpu/os version combinations.

Mixed response

[nine-times]

I think there are some valid points and some invalid points. My general response:

• 1. It's client-server all over again: Yeah, it is. We keep running up against this because doing things on the client has some advantages, and doing things on the server has other advantages. The debate will continue, because it's really not an issue of one being absolutely better, but choosing the better solution for your specific application.
• 2. Web UIs are a mess. & 3. Browser technologies are too limiting: These are really the same thing. Web apps suck. This may improve over time as the technology improves and new standards are put into place, but right now, they do kind of suck. If you can't deal with that, you don't want a web app.
• 4. The big vendors call the shots: a real objection. Do I want my ability to access my own documents/information to be at the mercy of another company? That's a question. worth considering.
• 5. Should every employee have a browser?: Meh, whatever. Every employee has a browser, and it's more trouble to remove them than it's worth. If you don't want people browsing the web, put up a firewall that can block/filter traffic. That's a better solution anyway.

Re:No Shit.

[nyvalbanat]

You're not thinking multi-platform. There's more than one OS out there, each with a completely different set of UI api's. Browser discrepancies are a joke compared to that.