What a horrible, horrible waste of money. Think of what you could build from scratch for $900M. Teenybopper internet users being as fickle as they are, they'll happily switch to the next flash-in-the-pan social networking site if it's better/flashier/trendier, and you could certainly one-up Fa(r)cebook with those kinds of dollars.
You have to keep in mind that expectations for web applications are so low to begin with due to the absolutely craptastic nature of the technologies involved, that any ugly hack that makes them suck a little bit less (from the user's standpoint) gets everybody excited beyond belief.
As counterintuitive as it may seem, this mania should be welcomed rather than loathed. Having most of the industry focused on these dead-end, mickey-mouse technologies actually opens up unique opportunities for those of us who have come up with more creative and elegant approaches for solving these types of problems.
What are you smoking? If it takes such an *enormous* effort to do, then how do you explain Writely? it's not like there is a massive software company with tons of resources behind it.
I am talking about a (hypothetical) web-based office suite, and you are citing a simplistic HTML editor as evidence that I'm crazy. These two things are not even in the same ballpark. If I wanted to "write a text document with a few tables in it" I wouldn't bother with an office suite either; I'd use a text editor, and then if I wanted to share that document with other people I certainly wouldn't need to bother with a clunky web app to do so.
And by the way, I don't like or use Microsoft Office. The only Microsoft product I own is a keyboard.
I was not implying that the end user cares about how elegant the implementation is. My point is that since all of the technologies in question are so demonstrably ill-suited for this type of application, it takes a massive amount of effort to implement even a basic set of features while trying to mimic a true desktop app and it makes it very hard to add new features, because everything from the presentation layer to the communication protocol to the back end infrastructure is a hideous kludge. On top of that, the network bandwidth and server-side hardware requirements for hosting this type of software are staggering, while the typical desktop machine's substantial computing capacity is squandered by using it as a glorified dumb terminal. In other words, very little bang for the buck. Where's the business sense in that?
I have no problem at all with the idea of hosted applications that are accessible from anywhere. I just don't understand why people who are bashing Microsoft applications are waiting with baited breath for replacements built on technology that's every bit as shitty but delivers far less functionality, responsiveness, ease-of-use, etc..
Re:You are overestimating the effort
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No Office Suite Google
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· Score: 2, Interesting
No, we're talking about something just as convoluted, only with less functionality.
Creating something like a simple web-based word processor is certainly within the realm of possibility. Unfortunately, the implementation ends up being a Rube Goldberg machine of clunky technologies duct-taped together into a horribly convoluted, difficult to maintain, spaghetti-code mess. I'm very sorry, web fanboys, but HTTP, HTML and JavaScript were not designed to be a GUI application framework and every attempt to shoehorn those technologies into that role just underscores the idiocy of the approach. That is not to say that network-based, zero-install applications are a bad concept--it's just that there are much, much more elegant ways to solve that problem, and that we could be making a lot of meaningful progress in that area if so much time and effort wasn't being wasted creating a million stupid web-app frameworks.
I have a Sony MPD-AP20U, which is essentially a Discman that can play MP3s off DVD-R. My entire CD collection (~600 albums) fits on about 10 DVD-Rs. It's a bit bulkier than the iPod, and the battery life isn't great (but I generally have it plugged into AC so it's a non-issue), but I'd take it over an iPod any day. It has a memory stick slot, USB interface, and can double as an external DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive. And it's a lot cheaper.
Re:Java's not exactly pining for the fields just n
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Java vs .NET
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· Score: 1
Slashdot Mirror
What a horrible, horrible waste of money. Think of what you could build from scratch for $900M. Teenybopper internet users being as fickle as they are, they'll happily switch to the next flash-in-the-pan social networking site if it's better/flashier/trendier, and you could certainly one-up Fa(r)cebook with those kinds of dollars.
As counterintuitive as it may seem, this mania should be welcomed rather than loathed. Having most of the industry focused on these dead-end, mickey-mouse technologies actually opens up unique opportunities for those of us who have come up with more creative and elegant approaches for solving these types of problems.
Stripping all the Java crap out of there would be a good start.
I am talking about a (hypothetical) web-based office suite, and you are citing a simplistic HTML editor as evidence that I'm crazy. These two things are not even in the same ballpark. If I wanted to "write a text document with a few tables in it" I wouldn't bother with an office suite either; I'd use a text editor, and then if I wanted to share that document with other people I certainly wouldn't need to bother with a clunky web app to do so.
And by the way, I don't like or use Microsoft Office. The only Microsoft product I own is a keyboard.
I have no problem at all with the idea of hosted applications that are accessible from anywhere. I just don't understand why people who are bashing Microsoft applications are waiting with baited breath for replacements built on technology that's every bit as shitty but delivers far less functionality, responsiveness, ease-of-use, etc..
No, we're talking about something just as convoluted, only with less functionality.
Creating something like a simple web-based word processor is certainly within the realm of possibility. Unfortunately, the implementation ends up being a Rube Goldberg machine of clunky technologies duct-taped together into a horribly convoluted, difficult to maintain, spaghetti-code mess. I'm very sorry, web fanboys, but HTTP, HTML and JavaScript were not designed to be a GUI application framework and every attempt to shoehorn those technologies into that role just underscores the idiocy of the approach. That is not to say that network-based, zero-install applications are a bad concept--it's just that there are much, much more elegant ways to solve that problem, and that we could be making a lot of meaningful progress in that area if so much time and effort wasn't being wasted creating a million stupid web-app frameworks.
An office suite built with JavaScript, DHTML, AJAX, and a bunch of back-end Java web-services bloatware, that runs in a browser? Give me a break.
I have a Sony MPD-AP20U, which is essentially a Discman that can play MP3s off DVD-R. My entire CD collection (~600 albums) fits on about 10 DVD-Rs. It's a bit bulkier than the iPod, and the battery life isn't great (but I generally have it plugged into AC so it's a non-issue), but I'd take it over an iPod any day. It has a memory stick slot, USB interface, and can double as an external DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive. And it's a lot cheaper.
Oh and also Java Vibrator API.
I think the Boys at www.wtf-d00d.com have the right idea when it comes to Web Technology: Bourne Shell Server Pages.