Being a Director developer, there are some things Director can do that Flash can't:
Control embedded PDF files Manipulate bitmaps Create 3D scenes with physics Make network calls through proxy servers Access/Modify system resources Wider range of media support
Director is actually capable of more than Flash, it just never caught on as well with developers. The mob rules, though.
Exactly. People seem to think that high IQ means you know everything and can solve any problem. They discount the idea that it takes a great deal of time to arrive at a position where you're capable of asking the right questions. It reminds me of hackers in movies. Regardless of whether or not they know a given system, they break it quickly and easily, because they're just smart in general. Never mind the accumulated knowledge and understanding of the system required to do it. IQ apparently entails ESP.
As you've said, if Newton hadn't been essentially unable to stop thinking about his problems, he wouldn't have accomplished as much as he did. Edison is a good example, too. He wasn't incredibly smart, but he was a man possessed.
I don't think smart people (or any people, really) get to choose what they think about. Their brains obsess over a certain problem to the exclusion of more domestic thoughts (keeping your cell phone safe). You can't do both at once.
Less intelligent people don't seem to obsess over problems as much, so they can pay more attention to what's in front of them.
I define intelligence as asking the right questions. This entails the curiosity needed to ask questions in the first place, and the insight to define exactly what it is you don't know.
I like your requirement of openness. The hallmark of an idiot is dogmatic adherence to ideas not questioned. For such people, defense of their subscribed views is more important than the actual views. They can't really reason or understand their views, only fight for their acceptance.
I remember reading about CASE tools in my first CS class. The idea was that software would be generated automatically, diminishing the need for programmers. From minute one this made no sense to me. Sure, there's off-the-shelf software, but for anything else, you still need to tell the computer in some way what/where the input is, what to do with it, how it affects other processes, how to return the data, etc. In short, you just push off programming at one level to programming at a different level. It's a false savings. People really seemed to believe that software would start writing itself, though.
It's human to say that something serves a purpose. The body is just a continuing mess of chemical reactions, none with a specific design. People have made similar claims of benefit about autism and schizophrenia, too. They confer logic and creativity. It doesn't change the fact that they're also significant handicaps.
I also have to question just how depressed the study participants were. Having been clinically depressed twice, my experience was one of blank, dreary shutdown. True, I didn't have an overly optimistic external viewpoint, but I also had an overly negative self-narrative. I was irrational. Fortunately, I couldn't summon the energy or focus to think about much of anything anyway.
I want to eat a genetically engineered cow fed nothing but other cows, high fructose corn syrup, antibiotics, and estrogen. I want the meat irradiated right before I eat it. I want it trucked 2000 miles to me.
You can take advantage of some drivers' impatience and lead foot to determine if there are any cops ahead. Simply linger in the passing lane when someone is driving right on your bumper. Don't get over until you can tell they're about to pass you on the right, then get over. The irritated driver will then shoot ahead much faster than they probably intended to go. If there are any police within the next few miles, the speeding driver will draw their attention.
Yeah, it's certainly more efficient. It makes sense. It'd just be interesting to have an entirely new OS to play with, rather than simply a new window/interface system.
I'll be happy if they come out with a nice IDE for it, though.
Their only hope for mass adoption is in getting this onto a lot of new computers. Most people aren't going to install this on a system they already have up and running. Given the blanket licensing agreements Microsoft has with most of the big OEMs, this may be impossible. Their best bet is in the ARM camp.
Anyone else kinda wish they'd actually made an entirely new OS?
One of the things I love about work is that I get to be a different person. I'm no longer an individual, I'm part of a hive. I'm there to do a job, and that's what I do. That's all you can do. When people around you are unprofessional, the only response is professionalism. Don't let anyone's emotion get to you. Know your role and company policy, and follow them. If someone makes an unreasonable demand, dispassionately tell them why it's not in the best interest of the company. Fall back always on the company - you're not making decisions because you're an asshole or bored or a renegade, you're making decisions because they support the success of the company. It's business. If you can maintain this focus despite the crows and clowns around you, nothing bad can stick to you. You'll be management material.
The central premise ignored in such arguments is wealth creation. It's fine to say that "we'll take $X from the top earners and give it to the poor," but it assumes that in this new system, there will be the same amount of wealth to divvy up. Changing the system changes the variables. It also punishes productive people, while rewarding unproductive ones. Productive people will tolerate this to a certain degree, but at some point there's no incentive for them to produce more, as their reward declines.
And what's your problem with brokers/traders? They make a lot of money? Then stop grousing and become one or appreciate the fact that it's just another job, demanding and risky. Salary for a job is commiserate with the difficulty of both doing the job, and finding people to do it. If you have a job anyone could do, and there are plenty of unemployed people, you're not special to your employer. Too many other bidders are driving the price down. The government provides guidance on future job skill growth and guaranteed loans to learn them. Some people take advantage of this and some sit idly on a sense of entitlement.
I may be jealous if a friend has a hotter/smarter girlfriend than I do, but he earned it. I don't want the government forcing her to see me once a week to make things more equitable.
Well put. Depression, because of it's overlap with "normal" human experience, is wildly misunderstood. Most people never experience psychotic symptoms, so they don't harp as much on the utility of antipsychotics, or, by the same token, anti-seizure meds for epileptics. They *do* feel bad from time to time, and so they feel they have depression figured out. Perhaps it's the fault of GPs who diagnose those people with depression, thus reinforcing their belief that depression is exactly what they've experienced.
Clinical depression is a world apart from "a bad month." It can cause hallucinations, anorexia, insomnia, profound fatigue, sensory disturbances, and inability to think. It's a physical disorder, and generally the physical symptoms precede the subjective ones (sadness, apathy, suicidal ideation).
I agree that it's normal for most people to get in a funk from time to time, but usually that's situational - your dad dies, you move somewhere new, you lose a job. I also agree that it's possible to use therapy to help instead of drugs, if your problem is due to negative/erroneous beliefs and self-narrative.
What I don't agree with is the herd mentality to throw out antidepressants due to an erroneous conception of the disease and the proper use of medications. The first antidepressants were discovered accidentally, by doctors treating tuberculosis patients with Iproniazid. The patients' moods changed enough that it was obvious something was going on. This wasn't anticipated, and thus certainly wasn't a placebo effect.
Wolfram probably could have chosen a more modest title for his book, and put his particular ocntributions to CAs in better perspective, but I do think he's right in his emphasis on CAs being a relatively new and important tool for future scientific modeling. It's an attempt to describe the world at a more fundamental level than we currently do, using computers and rules instead of equations. Equations aren't old hat, but they are old school. They often describe things in a macroscopic way - you don't get more out of them than you put in, you simply get a (literally) formulaic output. With CAs, as this proof demonstrates, you can theoretically model anything.
Computers also don't speak equations, so when you translate them to a computer language, you're never really getting what you want, but an approximation. CAs are fundamentally computers themselves. The only frustrating thing about employing CAs to model nature is the alienness of the method. Our minds aren't adept at thinking in terms of thousands of local interactions, and our science has reflected that. Unfortunately, if we can't ever figure out how to make sense of such methods, they'll never be of value to us.
It shouldn't take an article like this for people to appreciate the downsides of web apps. The IT industry has already been through an era when apps were centralized, and moved away from it.
I think that the current infatuation with "Web 2.0" is similar to a market panic or mania. For whatever reason, the web as an operating system has become the darling of the press, and the herd are following it. Like a market mania, the bubble will eventually burst, and people will suddenly see distributed apps in the cold light of day. Until then, "everybody's doing it" will rule the roost.
I don't have a problem with distributed applications, but current browsers aren't the ideal host for them.
A similar example is the smoker who had a new chest pain that wouldn't go away, was terrified for days that it would turn out to be lung cancer, and then was told by the doctor that he doesn't have cancer, so just carried on smoking! Shouldn't that be sort of a wake-up call? You need to choose relevant analogies in order to make a strong point. Your argument assumes that the case for anthropogenic products causing negative climate change is as solid and proven as the link between lung cancer and smoking. In the case of smoking, epidemiologists have documented millions of cases of lung cancer in smokers. They die. It has happened. In the case of global warming, studies are predicting that CO2 will cause warming, and the warming will be manifestly bad for us. It may be ruinous. It might happen.
It's entirely plausible that you'd feel different after eating just about anything, depending on your particulars. Avoiding that which makes you feel bad is sensible.
I used to have pretty bad digestive problems, and went through several exclusion diets, but I never felt any better, so my experience is different. At one point it looked like maybe gluten (as you mentioned) was the problem, but it ultimately proved tolerable. After much amateur endocrinology, I was finally cured by a psychiatrist, which fascinated me.
I think that foods and food additives are prime targets for people's concern because they go into our bodies. It's easy to scare people by saying that our foods are chemical or "artificial," since most people don't know anything about how the body digests it. HFCS sounds unnatural compared to sugar, but both have roughly similar composition (50/50 fructose/glucose +-10%).
Again, not denying the reality of your situation, I just think that the issue is clouded by a lot of hype and superstition. It's become like religion or politics, and isn't productive to talk about. The people with genuine allergies are diluted by hypochondriacs and luddites.
Most of the programmers I know deal primarily with simple web sites or legacy apps. There aren't any demanding mathematical maneuvers involved. It's mostly flow control, modeling objects, and error control. As long as they're able to appreciate the basics of algebra, they're fine. The real skill involved seems to be the ability to define the application as a group of much simpler processes, and structuring the interaction between those. It's about fully appreciating the consequences of a chosen algorithm.
Beyond the ability to break down systems into simpler subsystems, programming also demands knowledge of the syntax and features a given language has. Much like learning a foreign language, this takes time to fully master, and serves as a relatively important barrier to entry for those virgin to the field. Compilers are unforgiving of the tiniest syntax error, and syntax is essentially arbitrary. Typically, one must know several languages to complete a project. If you spend all of your time consulting your language texts, you'll be inefficient. If you don't understand all of the features a language has, you'll invariably write code that's more convoluted than necessary. A great coder in Actionscript can easily be a mediocre C# developer. Knowledge of the language is critical, and said knowledge isn't easy to master.
Of course, there will always be programs whose purpose is to perform involved computations, so math will always be required somewhere in the field. Still, those applications are easily outnumbered by the sea of data driven form apps and middleware which require little or no tricky math.
The bible is only sacred to those who believe in the divinity of its writers and protagonists. If I were to write my own bible, would you use it as screed for defining the Universe? No, because you wouldn't believe in my divinity. The problem, therefore, with attempting to argue such issues lies with the personal beliefs of the audience. What you hold sacred, the majority of humanity regards as a curiosity.
Biblical mysticism first requires that a person believes in the supernatural. This in itself is an unfounded leap to make, but people generally seem wired to accept this sort of premise. Beyond this, one is also required to accept the ancient writings of various prophets and disciples as the definitive handle on what form the supernatural assumes, and how it relates to us. As there are numerous other religions, both dead and thriving, one must assume that the others are wrong. Why? How can we know?
I can appreciate the fact that science isn't infallible, either. Science has looked at gravity for a few centuries and still hasn't really explained it. Ultimately, there are things science will never explain, but the greatest thing about science is that it doesn't claim to answer questions that can't be proven experimentally. Want to prove why the sun rises? Fire a satellite up to show the earth spinning. Want to prove that Jesus rose from the dead? Rely on testimony retranslated multiple times from a small cult of people living 2000 years ago (or use science to observe that no one who dies comes back to life after 3 days).
You make good points. Often, when you describe a situation as you just have, people will dismiss it as an exceptionally poor system, and refuse to appreciate the realities you've listed. Just because something should ideally work well and there are best practices to counter problems doesn't mean that the reality is such. I witness this gap in a lot of government contracts. The contract stipulates everything that the planners could think of, and so the decision makers are satisfied that they have produced a definitive and viable system. People can point to it and say, "there's your solution." On paper. In reality, the system may be de facto inaccessible due to its security or location, limited in its compatibility, unsupported, inadequate due to a short-sighted decision or changing requirements, or sometimes just broken. Though the system doesn't satisfy the needs of its users, because it has already been deemed that the task is complete, little is done to help users, who often have no recourse.
Getting back more specifically to web apps, I think that one of the reasons for the success and growing dominance of such applications is the association of web servers with databases. The ease with which developers have been able to produce interfaces for data by running both from the same server has clouded the notion of database access as a discrete system.
What's not clear to me, however, is whether a traditional web browser is the appropriate solution for this. It may be that, rather than making "web applications", we need a different framework that allows the sort of flexibility that web apps allow but with the consistency of desktop apps. Maybe a web browser should go back to reading static HTML and a new sort of generic remote application framework needs to be developed-- but who the hell is going to do that?
I'm with you here. The browser does certain things well, but has many failings as an application host. Some of my major gripes:
No global memory scope. One of the primary tasks of an application is to store state. Currently, this is faked via cookies or server sessions, but having it so inaccessible to the client script makes it hard to emulate an application.
Poor multimedia support. If you want to display and manipulate things like video or PDFs within a browser UI, you're wading out into no man's land of plugins that may or may not work the way you want.
Javascript. I'm warming to it a bit, and you can do cool things with it when you know what you're doing, but it's just too abstract and incomplete to be a basis for application libraries. Scant typing, primitive array features, few math/time functions, slow.
Reliance on a network and server. If something goes wrong with either, or if you don't have net access, you're up a creek.
Tight sandboxing. This is a good thing, for the most part, but there are times when it makes sense to access local resources.
Limited UI. No chance for things like 3D apps. If it can't be done with text and images, you need a plugin.
Incompatibility. I can't count the number of hours I've spent trying to figure out why a div is 3 pixels off in IE or doesn't flow right in Firefox, etc.
Those are just some of the problems with the web as the future of apps. Web apps make sense for things involving database access and forms, but are really stretching when it comes to doing something responsive and complex, like a Photoshop or CAD program.
Traditional applications will be around as long as people want to do things a browser can't (or does poorly). It's amusing to me that as PCs have gotten ever more powerful, we're using that power less and less.
Slashdot Mirror
Politics. Some day, if something happens, someone might ask "why didn't we do this?" Fear of "common" sense.
Being a Director developer, there are some things Director can do that Flash can't:
Control embedded PDF files
Manipulate bitmaps
Create 3D scenes with physics
Make network calls through proxy servers
Access/Modify system resources
Wider range of media support
Director is actually capable of more than Flash, it just never caught on as well with developers. The mob rules, though.
Exactly. People seem to think that high IQ means you know everything and can solve any problem. They discount the idea that it takes a great deal of time to arrive at a position where you're capable of asking the right questions. It reminds me of hackers in movies. Regardless of whether or not they know a given system, they break it quickly and easily, because they're just smart in general. Never mind the accumulated knowledge and understanding of the system required to do it. IQ apparently entails ESP.
As you've said, if Newton hadn't been essentially unable to stop thinking about his problems, he wouldn't have accomplished as much as he did. Edison is a good example, too. He wasn't incredibly smart, but he was a man possessed.
I don't think smart people (or any people, really) get to choose what they think about. Their brains obsess over a certain problem to the exclusion of more domestic thoughts (keeping your cell phone safe). You can't do both at once.
Less intelligent people don't seem to obsess over problems as much, so they can pay more attention to what's in front of them.
I define intelligence as asking the right questions. This entails the curiosity needed to ask questions in the first place, and the insight to define exactly what it is you don't know.
I like your requirement of openness. The hallmark of an idiot is dogmatic adherence to ideas not questioned. For such people, defense of their subscribed views is more important than the actual views. They can't really reason or understand their views, only fight for their acceptance.
I remember reading about CASE tools in my first CS class. The idea was that software would be generated automatically, diminishing the need for programmers. From minute one this made no sense to me. Sure, there's off-the-shelf software, but for anything else, you still need to tell the computer in some way what/where the input is, what to do with it, how it affects other processes, how to return the data, etc. In short, you just push off programming at one level to programming at a different level. It's a false savings. People really seemed to believe that software would start writing itself, though.
It's human to say that something serves a purpose. The body is just a continuing mess of chemical reactions, none with a specific design. People have made similar claims of benefit about autism and schizophrenia, too. They confer logic and creativity. It doesn't change the fact that they're also significant handicaps.
I also have to question just how depressed the study participants were. Having been clinically depressed twice, my experience was one of blank, dreary shutdown. True, I didn't have an overly optimistic external viewpoint, but I also had an overly negative self-narrative. I was irrational. Fortunately, I couldn't summon the energy or focus to think about much of anything anyway.
I want to eat a genetically engineered cow fed nothing but other cows, high fructose corn syrup, antibiotics, and estrogen. I want the meat irradiated right before I eat it. I want it trucked 2000 miles to me.
You can take advantage of some drivers' impatience and lead foot to determine if there are any cops ahead. Simply linger in the passing lane when someone is driving right on your bumper. Don't get over until you can tell they're about to pass you on the right, then get over. The irritated driver will then shoot ahead much faster than they probably intended to go. If there are any police within the next few miles, the speeding driver will draw their attention.
Yeah, it's certainly more efficient. It makes sense. It'd just be interesting to have an entirely new OS to play with, rather than simply a new window/interface system.
I'll be happy if they come out with a nice IDE for it, though.
Their only hope for mass adoption is in getting this onto a lot of new computers. Most people aren't going to install this on a system they already have up and running. Given the blanket licensing agreements Microsoft has with most of the big OEMs, this may be impossible. Their best bet is in the ARM camp.
Anyone else kinda wish they'd actually made an entirely new OS?
One of the things I love about work is that I get to be a different person. I'm no longer an individual, I'm part of a hive. I'm there to do a job, and that's what I do. That's all you can do. When people around you are unprofessional, the only response is professionalism. Don't let anyone's emotion get to you. Know your role and company policy, and follow them. If someone makes an unreasonable demand, dispassionately tell them why it's not in the best interest of the company. Fall back always on the company - you're not making decisions because you're an asshole or bored or a renegade, you're making decisions because they support the success of the company. It's business. If you can maintain this focus despite the crows and clowns around you, nothing bad can stick to you. You'll be management material.
The central premise ignored in such arguments is wealth creation. It's fine to say that "we'll take $X from the top earners and give it to the poor," but it assumes that in this new system, there will be the same amount of wealth to divvy up. Changing the system changes the variables. It also punishes productive people, while rewarding unproductive ones. Productive people will tolerate this to a certain degree, but at some point there's no incentive for them to produce more, as their reward declines.
And what's your problem with brokers/traders? They make a lot of money? Then stop grousing and become one or appreciate the fact that it's just another job, demanding and risky. Salary for a job is commiserate with the difficulty of both doing the job, and finding people to do it. If you have a job anyone could do, and there are plenty of unemployed people, you're not special to your employer. Too many other bidders are driving the price down. The government provides guidance on future job skill growth and guaranteed loans to learn them. Some people take advantage of this and some sit idly on a sense of entitlement.
I may be jealous if a friend has a hotter/smarter girlfriend than I do, but he earned it. I don't want the government forcing her to see me once a week to make things more equitable.
Well put. Depression, because of it's overlap with "normal" human experience, is wildly misunderstood. Most people never experience psychotic symptoms, so they don't harp as much on the utility of antipsychotics, or, by the same token, anti-seizure meds for epileptics. They *do* feel bad from time to time, and so they feel they have depression figured out. Perhaps it's the fault of GPs who diagnose those people with depression, thus reinforcing their belief that depression is exactly what they've experienced.
Clinical depression is a world apart from "a bad month." It can cause hallucinations, anorexia, insomnia, profound fatigue, sensory disturbances, and inability to think. It's a physical disorder, and generally the physical symptoms precede the subjective ones (sadness, apathy, suicidal ideation).
I agree that it's normal for most people to get in a funk from time to time, but usually that's situational - your dad dies, you move somewhere new, you lose a job. I also agree that it's possible to use therapy to help instead of drugs, if your problem is due to negative/erroneous beliefs and self-narrative.
What I don't agree with is the herd mentality to throw out antidepressants due to an erroneous conception of the disease and the proper use of medications. The first antidepressants were discovered accidentally, by doctors treating tuberculosis patients with Iproniazid. The patients' moods changed enough that it was obvious something was going on. This wasn't anticipated, and thus certainly wasn't a placebo effect.
Wolfram probably could have chosen a more modest title for his book, and put his particular ocntributions to CAs in better perspective, but I do think he's right in his emphasis on CAs being a relatively new and important tool for future scientific modeling. It's an attempt to describe the world at a more fundamental level than we currently do, using computers and rules instead of equations. Equations aren't old hat, but they are old school. They often describe things in a macroscopic way - you don't get more out of them than you put in, you simply get a (literally) formulaic output. With CAs, as this proof demonstrates, you can theoretically model anything.
Computers also don't speak equations, so when you translate them to a computer language, you're never really getting what you want, but an approximation. CAs are fundamentally computers themselves. The only frustrating thing about employing CAs to model nature is the alienness of the method. Our minds aren't adept at thinking in terms of thousands of local interactions, and our science has reflected that. Unfortunately, if we can't ever figure out how to make sense of such methods, they'll never be of value to us.
It shouldn't take an article like this for people to appreciate the downsides of web apps. The IT industry has already been through an era when apps were centralized, and moved away from it.
I think that the current infatuation with "Web 2.0" is similar to a market panic or mania. For whatever reason, the web as an operating system has become the darling of the press, and the herd are following it. Like a market mania, the bubble will eventually burst, and people will suddenly see distributed apps in the cold light of day. Until then, "everybody's doing it" will rule the roost.
I don't have a problem with distributed applications, but current browsers aren't the ideal host for them.
Yeah, I just had to fulfill your prophecy.
It's entirely plausible that you'd feel different after eating just about anything, depending on your particulars. Avoiding that which makes you feel bad is sensible.
I used to have pretty bad digestive problems, and went through several exclusion diets, but I never felt any better, so my experience is different. At one point it looked like maybe gluten (as you mentioned) was the problem, but it ultimately proved tolerable. After much amateur endocrinology, I was finally cured by a psychiatrist, which fascinated me.
I think that foods and food additives are prime targets for people's concern because they go into our bodies. It's easy to scare people by saying that our foods are chemical or "artificial," since most people don't know anything about how the body digests it. HFCS sounds unnatural compared to sugar, but both have roughly similar composition (50/50 fructose/glucose +-10%).
Again, not denying the reality of your situation, I just think that the issue is clouded by a lot of hype and superstition. It's become like religion or politics, and isn't productive to talk about. The people with genuine allergies are diluted by hypochondriacs and luddites.
You're a fool. There's no scientific proof that MSG and HFSC are bad for you.
and he must go to bed at 9:30.
Most of the programmers I know deal primarily with simple web sites or legacy apps. There aren't any demanding mathematical maneuvers involved. It's mostly flow control, modeling objects, and error control. As long as they're able to appreciate the basics of algebra, they're fine. The real skill involved seems to be the ability to define the application as a group of much simpler processes, and structuring the interaction between those. It's about fully appreciating the consequences of a chosen algorithm.
Beyond the ability to break down systems into simpler subsystems, programming also demands knowledge of the syntax and features a given language has. Much like learning a foreign language, this takes time to fully master, and serves as a relatively important barrier to entry for those virgin to the field. Compilers are unforgiving of the tiniest syntax error, and syntax is essentially arbitrary. Typically, one must know several languages to complete a project. If you spend all of your time consulting your language texts, you'll be inefficient. If you don't understand all of the features a language has, you'll invariably write code that's more convoluted than necessary. A great coder in Actionscript can easily be a mediocre C# developer. Knowledge of the language is critical, and said knowledge isn't easy to master.
Of course, there will always be programs whose purpose is to perform involved computations, so math will always be required somewhere in the field. Still, those applications are easily outnumbered by the sea of data driven form apps and middleware which require little or no tricky math.
The bible is only sacred to those who believe in the divinity of its writers and protagonists. If I were to write my own bible, would you use it as screed for defining the Universe? No, because you wouldn't believe in my divinity. The problem, therefore, with attempting to argue such issues lies with the personal beliefs of the audience. What you hold sacred, the majority of humanity regards as a curiosity.
Biblical mysticism first requires that a person believes in the supernatural. This in itself is an unfounded leap to make, but people generally seem wired to accept this sort of premise. Beyond this, one is also required to accept the ancient writings of various prophets and disciples as the definitive handle on what form the supernatural assumes, and how it relates to us. As there are numerous other religions, both dead and thriving, one must assume that the others are wrong. Why? How can we know?
I can appreciate the fact that science isn't infallible, either. Science has looked at gravity for a few centuries and still hasn't really explained it. Ultimately, there are things science will never explain, but the greatest thing about science is that it doesn't claim to answer questions that can't be proven experimentally. Want to prove why the sun rises? Fire a satellite up to show the earth spinning. Want to prove that Jesus rose from the dead? Rely on testimony retranslated multiple times from a small cult of people living 2000 years ago (or use science to observe that no one who dies comes back to life after 3 days).
Ok, but this makes God nothing more than a formalism, and isn't very compelling as a deity. Why bother praying to an indefinite abstraction?
People want a discrete, volitional god.
You make good points. Often, when you describe a situation as you just have, people will dismiss it as an exceptionally poor system, and refuse to appreciate the realities you've listed. Just because something should ideally work well and there are best practices to counter problems doesn't mean that the reality is such. I witness this gap in a lot of government contracts. The contract stipulates everything that the planners could think of, and so the decision makers are satisfied that they have produced a definitive and viable system. People can point to it and say, "there's your solution." On paper. In reality, the system may be de facto inaccessible due to its security or location, limited in its compatibility, unsupported, inadequate due to a short-sighted decision or changing requirements, or sometimes just broken. Though the system doesn't satisfy the needs of its users, because it has already been deemed that the task is complete, little is done to help users, who often have no recourse.
Getting back more specifically to web apps, I think that one of the reasons for the success and growing dominance of such applications is the association of web servers with databases. The ease with which developers have been able to produce interfaces for data by running both from the same server has clouded the notion of database access as a discrete system.
I'm with you here. The browser does certain things well, but has many failings as an application host. Some of my major gripes:
Those are just some of the problems with the web as the future of apps. Web apps make sense for things involving database access and forms, but are really stretching when it comes to doing something responsive and complex, like a Photoshop or CAD program.
Traditional applications will be around as long as people want to do things a browser can't (or does poorly). It's amusing to me that as PCs have gotten ever more powerful, we're using that power less and less.