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Comment by carpal | Hacker News Reader

His idea of a complex web application is completely misguided. He sees a "complex web application" as a "desktop application that runs in the browser." That's wrong, and it is no wonder why such "complex web applications" run better on the desktop.

My idea of a complex web application is one that simply cannot be done on the desktop. I'm making one and I don't even include any Javascript libraries. AJAX != Complexity.

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Not that I agree with him, but what exactly can't be done on desktop? Everything you can do in a browser can be done in a desktop application because the browser is a desktop application.

You might argue that it would be easier to develop as web application, you might argue that it would lower barrier to entry because users won't need to download and install software. But please don't imply that there is some special about web applications which can't be done in a desktop application.

For practical purposes, I agree with the original author that there are things that can be done on the desktop that can't be done on the browser, but not the other way around. This is just a simple extension of the fact that the user has the same computer and the same internet connection, but in a browser-based app, you don't have access to all the computer's resources. Therefore, you have less overall power available and there are things that theoretically can't be done. If you have unlimited bandwidth and transfer speeds, then there is no difference.

And there's nothing you couldn't do with a desktop app, if for no other reason that you could "Greenspun" a full browser into your desktop app to include anything that theoretically couldn't be done without a browser.

Up modded both for merit and for making Greenspun a verb.

Already a verb (or at least a gerund):

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=greenspunning

What I need is a multimedia (product description and examples), hyperlinked (for product referrals) app browsing program that will transparently download and run the apps I'm interested in. Can you greenspin this out of your desktop software?

Like all things, there is the good and the bad. The author is referring to BAD web apps that simply port desktop apps to the web.

Good web apps are ones that utilize features of web apps to enhance the application. For example

Collaborative work Easy deployment Being Viral Mobility CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP, no need to print cds.(save some trees, or petroleum)

i ran out of things for now, but i'm sure come up with more after my hot pocket.

Hot pocket ( http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hot%20pocket )? I wasn't famaliar with this phrase. Perhaps, I shouldn't have consulted the Urban Dictionary.

With web-applications you can force users to either pay for them or not use them. Good luck doing that with desktop applications.

I think effectively sharing information is much harder in a desktop application. See browsers have this standard communication protocol ;) that desktop applications tend to lack.

Browsers... and pretty much every standard desktop API that's out there.

People can't use my desktop application at any random library, or on their {i,g}phone--with my web application they can.

The funny thing to me is that he doesn't know that "desktop in a browser" functionality is not an incredibly complex thing for web apps anymore. It's a matter of having good enough client side development skills to implement it. Also, with UI frameworks like Flex, YUI-EXT, and Apache XAP abstracting all of the hard stuff away...you don't even have to be an expert.

This guy doesn't even fully understand the topic that he is ranting about.

http://metacircular.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/web-application...

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