The Web Is Becoming Smalltalk

Post by DoubleCluster » Mon, Feb 11, 2013, 8:58 AM UTC

chubot wrote: post #25

DoubleCluster wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the dislike? It's not a bad protocol.

From what I remember, it's pretty chatty. It appears to be on its way out. Is there any new software that's using it? WebDAV had some varying levels of support in Windows and Mac desktops. But AFAIK the Windows stuff got broken; not sure about Mac. I think that access from a GUI file browser was one of its main use cases in the 90's. If nobody does that anymore, and I don't think they do, then the protocol will need…

Post by melchebo » Mon, Feb 11, 2013, 9:14 AM UTC

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #56

gamblor956 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XMLHttpRequest is not a hack. It was deliberately developed by Microsoft as part of Internet Explorer to enable desktop-like functionality in Outlook Web Access. [ http://www.alexhopmann.com/xmlhttp.htm ]. It was then copied by Netscape, and it spread from there.

> XMLHttpRequest is not a hack. It was deliberately developed by Microsoft as part of Internet Explorer to enable desktop-like functionality in Outlook Web Access. I believe you tried to correct me, but you proved my point even further. Desktop-like functionality on a software meant to navigate between linked documents is simply a broken interaction model.

Post by malandrew » Mon, Feb 11, 2013, 9:38 AM UTC

chewxy wrote: post #7

It only makes sense if you talk about utility webapps (like twitter). Not everything is a webapp though. Wikipedia for example, is just a display of documents. Should it become a fancy webapp? I don't see much benefit in it. The old page concept is plenty fine in many contexts IMO.

    The Browser — A Lament

    *Binstock:* Still, you can't argue with the Web's success.

    *Kay:* I think you can.

    *Binstock:* Well, look at Wikipedia — it's a tremendous collaboration.

    *Kay:* It is, but go to the article on Logo, can you write and execute Logo programs? 
    Are there examples? No. The Wikipedia people didn't even imagine that, in spite of the 
    fact that they're on a computer. That's why I never use PowerPoint. PowerPoint is just 
    simulated acetate overhead slides, and to me, that is a kind of a moral crime. That's 
    why I always do, not just dynamic stuff when I give a talk, but I do stuff that I'm 
    interacting with on-the-fly. Because that is what the computer is for. People who 
    don't do that either don't understand that or don't respect it.

    The marketing people are not there to teach people, so probably one of the most 
    disastrous interactions with computing was the fact that you could make money selling 
    simulations of old, familiar media, and these apps just swamped most of the ideas of 
    Doug Engelbart, for example. The Web browser, for many, many years, and still, even 
    though it's running on a computer that can do X, Y, and Z, it's now up to about X and 
    1/2 of Y.

Post by p4bl0 » Mon, Feb 11, 2013, 10:09 AM UTC

Post by fractallyte » Mon, Feb 11, 2013, 10:44 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #24

breckinloggins wrote: post #5

Chris Granger's Light Table is also trying to do it. Of course, Bret Victor's talk breathed new life into this whole thing. But everything old is new again. People want to build software from a small kernel that scaffolds itself. They want to immediately switch between "testing the app" mode and "building the app" mode. They want something more than a text file, a tool pipeline, and an executable at the other end. On…

Its not the same. Light Table and Bret's demos go way beyond what Smalltalk ever did. Its not just about hot swapping, but liveness, and the Smalltalk community never got that [1]. But it doesn't stop them from saying they've already done it because they don't understand what they are seeing, and thinking is hard. [1] John Maloney got it with Morphic, and even coins the term Liveness at about the same time Tanimoto d…