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Coding Horror: All Programming is Web Programming

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61–70 of 102 posts

Re: Coding Horror: All Programming is Web Programming

#61

Post by wwalker3 »

teppefall wrote: post #32
wwalker3 wrote: post #7

Once technologies like Google's Native Client take off, the web browser becomes merely the installer and updater for my native app. And it'll be none too soon -- then we can abandon the doomed effort to somehow cobble together huge, powerful apps like Maya and Photoshop out of a mess of JavaScript and XML.

That makes no sense to me. Google Native Client is just a desperate attempt to hide expensive code from other companies. How many nuclear power plants, switches, routers, undersea pipelines, servers and UPS systems are needed to run a Facebook turd-app connected to Google DRM anyway ? Talking about the slowness of Javascript is amusing when 856 sub-systems needs to be operational for a Web 2.0 "Hello World". Give me…

Perhaps you're replying to a different comment than the one I made? I was talking about the difficulty of creating complex, responsive user interfaces in JavaScript. NaCl (if it works out) seems to open another path for developing interface-heavy apps for the web.

Re: Coding Horror: All Programming is Web Programming

#62

Post by icefox »

akmiller wrote: post #21

There will always be a place for both. Move on...

You will always need a desktop application if only for the browser. :) I find hacking on Arora, Qt, QtWebKit and WebKit fun. And a browser will always need a desktop (of some sort even if it is just a framebuffer)

Re: Coding Horror: All Programming is Web Programming

#63

Post by srn »

Hanging around the hacker dojo and spending a little bit of time at open source world, there are definitely people who think this is true, that all programming and applications are web apps and they're all going to move "into the cloud." I find amusing the lack of acknowledgment that your web app requires an operating system, a web browser, network equipment, etc. to run. Unless all these "just work" and there is no more development left?

Re: Coding Horror: All Programming is Web Programming

#64

Post by coliveira »

jkuria wrote: post #36
nickelplate wrote: post #31

People like to say that the web is replacing the desktop, but is this really the case? When I look at the web applications I use on a regular basis (Amazon, craigslist, LinkedIn...) I cannot think of a desktop app they have displaced. I cannot say, for example, that "I stopped using desktop application X because Amazon is so much better". On the other hand, my trips to the book store are less frequent because of Amaz…

There is a photoshop clone for the web that is really successful: www.picnik.com

Fantastic. Doesn't have all features of PS, but it is way easier to use.

Re: Coding Horror: All Programming is Web Programming

#65

Post by LegionSB »

wwalker3 wrote: post #7

Once technologies like Google's Native Client take off, the web browser becomes merely the installer and updater for my native app. And it'll be none too soon -- then we can abandon the doomed effort to somehow cobble together huge, powerful apps like Maya and Photoshop out of a mess of JavaScript and XML.

>> "then we can abandon the doomed effort to somehow cobble together huge, powerful apps like Maya and Photoshop out of a mess of JavaScript and XML."

Or, you know, we could develop better tools for the web.

I'm amazed that this discussion always takes the stance that we're stuck with what we're using for web development now, as if nobody could possibly develop better languages and tools for web use.

Re: Coding Horror: All Programming is Web Programming

#66

Post by rjurney »

gizmo wrote: post #33
wreel wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that both remarkably miss the point that the true measure of software is actualized value to the end user. Who cares about platform or depth of technical knowledge? If some PHP hobbyist who knows nothing about mmap(3) delivers a site that works for people then he is a successful programmer. But assertions like "You hope everything doesn't "move to the web"? Wake the hell up! It's already happened!" irk me. Th…

> Who cares about platform or depth of technical knowledge? The programmer does. There are a lot of really smart programmers that just want to work on interesting challenges. And if you're the kind of programmer that enjoys solving difficult problems, you're not going to find many when building web 2.0 apps.

When basic things are hard, you have fun challenges addressing basic things. When basic things are easy, you are free to do more interesting things at a higher level. Web apps are easy. Making interesting web apps that do really cool things and solve serious problems - its as hard as any kind of app.

Your problem is that you're focusing on the same challenges and finding them easy, instead of thinking about what new things this simplicity enables. Step up a level, use the higher level tools to build better things - and you'll be challenged again. And you'll make better things.

Re: Coding Horror: All Programming is Web Programming

#67

Post by steveklabnik »

jkuria wrote: post #36
nickelplate wrote: post #31

People like to say that the web is replacing the desktop, but is this really the case? When I look at the web applications I use on a regular basis (Amazon, craigslist, LinkedIn...) I cannot think of a desktop app they have displaced. I cannot say, for example, that "I stopped using desktop application X because Amazon is so much better". On the other hand, my trips to the book store are less frequent because of Amaz…

There is a photoshop clone for the web that is really successful: www.picnik.com

Also, Aviary's stuff is really, really cool.

Re: Coding Horror: All Programming is Web Programming

#68

Post by rythie »

Is web programming really that much easier than desktop application programming?

Most desktop applications can use masses of memory, CPU and disk before the average user will complain. In most cases this is not possible on a web app. since the same hardware must serve 1000s of people.

Re: Coding Horror: All Programming is Web Programming

#69

Post by cschep »

nickelplate wrote: post #31

People like to say that the web is replacing the desktop, but is this really the case? When I look at the web applications I use on a regular basis (Amazon, craigslist, LinkedIn...) I cannot think of a desktop app they have displaced. I cannot say, for example, that "I stopped using desktop application X because Amazon is so much better". On the other hand, my trips to the book store are less frequent because of Amaz…

There are at on of people that can't/don't want to afford Photoshop. Also, downloading/installing it could actually block them from using it. Now they can just blast over to a "website" and get the basic functionality...that's a problem being solved in my mind. And a worthy one.

Re: Coding Horror: All Programming is Web Programming

#70

Post by rjurney »

alex_c wrote: post #60
sgk284 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, you believe that? The two challenges that immediately come to mind are scaling and data mining, but there are a number of others. The use cases presented by the web have pushed distributed computing further than any other single thing in computing history. The web is just the interface the user interacts with... the stuff that's going on behind the scenes is still really interesting and very challenging. Buil…

Not really, most web apps are just CRUD (and MVC if you're lucky). What percentage of all web apps (remember, this includes apps that are only ever used on a corporate intranet) ever get to tackle scaling or data mining?

Most positions in any field are entry level. If you like data mining, plenty of web companies do that.
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