On 5/30/2017 2:33 PM, Ed Leafe wrote:
Just responded to Ed's post saying that a desktop UI still kicks ass over a web page UI.
Ten years ago I would have wholeheartedly agreed with you. Five years ago I wouldn't have been too sure about that. Now think that the Javascript tools and frameworks have advanced so that they can do as much or more than desktop widgets, and they totally kick ass when used on mobile platforms.
...
Rich client will always be a better user experience than dumb terminal.
Note that "javascript" is essentially "rich client thinking" - albeit rich client as rendered within a "browser platform". Most "mobile apps" that are "good" do not use "browser" technology: they implement their own form of "rich client". Essentially, what we're witnessing to a degree is a return to "rich client" design and processing.
What amazes me is the horrific browser-based incompatibilities that still exist. Even within a single enterprise... sometimes we have to turn on IE's "View in Compatibility Mode" sometimes not - and don't even try to view the same web pages in firefox, IE, and Chrome and expect similar results. There is no web page that is truly responsive: every web application where I work (which is quite a large company) is pathetically slow. All their "browser-based" applications have essentially turned into "Excel-export" engines because the user experience is so horrible. That's after 100's of millions of dollars were sucked into creating those supposedly wonderful browser-based applications.
So, while javascript, silverlight, and whatever else have gotten us close to where we were in the 1990's in regards to user interfaces, I hope folks can understand my negativity. Just imagine where our UI's would have been if we had avoided the decades jump backward of "browsers"
Note my views have NOTHING to do with "the internet" or "centralized data" or "connecting to everything", etc. Accessing, sharing, publishing data securely "across the internet" can, and does, work just fine without any browser involvement.
In fact, I'm planning on building the web pages for this Automated Data Dictionary concept for my company. Most of the functionality will be in the "API" (aka stored procedures in the database). I'm going to also build, on my own time, a VFP integration into that API. I'll show both of the UI's and let them decide which is the better experience. I have a very strong suspicion that the user population simple does not realize how much they're being hampered by web browsers.
And before people start slobbering themselves with "... but... but... the DISTRIBUTION!!!! OMG!! How could you DISTRIBUTE a rich client application..." - really, don't bother. Simple file shares (dare I say even "sharepoint"?) make rich client distribution fall-off-a-log easy and secure. I have seen more browser-based "distribution" problems than I've ever seen with my "desktop" distributions.
I imagine the usual MS-heads, or browser-pundits, or whatever will say... "oh, it sounds like your web developers are just too STUPID to know how to do things right..." Whatever. They're all "MS-certified" "Web page designer-certified" developers. So it seems a little fishy that "certified experts" working in the field for 2 decades still cannot do it well (I'm being a little facetious here - based on my experience, I realize "certifications" mean almost nothing in the real world of software development).
-Charlie