Why Web-based development might not be the best choice | Hacker News Reader

Why Web-based development might not be the best choice

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19 pointsccraigIW26 comments

1. It's client-server all over again.

But without the problems of deploying an application to thousands of desktops.

2. Web UIs are a mess.

These arguments are the same for the desktop apps. Powerbuilder looks different than .NET looks different than Swing... Besides, maintaining an open stateful connection to a server is very very expensive and limits scalability.

3. Browser technologies are too limiting.

Wrong! Having to go into the office because your desktop app is installed on the computer in your cube and you can't VPN is too limiting. Web apps enable the freedom to access information securely from anywhere much much easier than desktop apps.

4. The big vendors call the shots.

A little bit of truth here. Browser incompatibilities are a real hurdle, but so are desktop incompatibilities. I'd rather solve incompatibilities between a few browsers (which in an organization is usually just /one/ corporate standard browser) than thousands of different desktop configurations: laptops for the execs, desktops for the front line, etc...

5. Should every employee have a browser?

Just because you have a web browser installed doesn't mean it can browse the "web". Install a firewall or block problem domains -- all the cool corporations are doing it!

I have difficulty using web-based apps because they are just too slow for me. I am a bit of a speed freak, tweaking and overclocking, etc. -- but I do value my time and I've never used a web-based app whose speed pleased me.

If I have a choice, I'll stick with desktop applications forever.

Sure, they're the right solution sometimes. But that doesn't mean I want to use them if I can help it.

GMail seems pretty fast to me, often faster than Outlook on my desktop which is synced to it.

What browser are you using? That usually is most of the problem. Chrome chews through even the toughest javascript-based apps, including gmail, greader, facebook. It's way faster to load a web page than to open an application on my own machine.

I use Firefox 3.0.5 on Linux.

I have 10,000RPM drives in RAID 0, so my computer is always faster to open a local app than to open a webpage.

When I put ubuntu on my machine at home firefox 3 seemed substantially slower than it did on windows. I'm not sure if FF3 is crappy on iinux or if there was something about my install that was screwed up.

Firefox has some serious issues on Linux. It's admirable that they make a browser for Linux, but they do seem to let a lot more fall through the cracks than on other platforms.

For example, I've seen several websites that crash Linux in Firefox -- not good. The rendering in general is also not as good as win/mac, esp. with respect to transparency.

Strange -- it seems faster in Linux to me than in Windows, though I've never done any formal benchmarks.

Haven't had any crashing problems, either.

You're using a web-based app right now ...

These are mostly straw-man arguments or issues that are even worse in OS-land.

"Browser technologies are too limiting."

Sometimes, this is a very good thing! The current browser technology model is somewhat of a funky, broken, incomplete technology stack, but has an interesting set of side effects. I firmly believe that creativity is born from constraints. The browser is a set of constraints that has proven For example...

1) Modal dialogs, typically an annoyance or "UI smell", are hard to implement 2) Base functionality: back/forward 3) Base functionality: window management 4) Base functionality: collaboration via URL sharing 5) Forced to either be ugly, or do a bunch of work and thinking. Desktop apps get away with arranging the native components into a pattern that looks like crap. 6) Can't steal the focus from other apps

I fail to see how any but the third is web-specific. Any app with a server component will have scaling issues, at least there are well-developed mechanisms for spreading HTTP unlike a home-grown protocol. I've seen plenty of absolutely horrific native client UIs, and I'm looking at you Lotus. OS vendors and OEMs call the shots on native apps not to mention the nightmare of poking arbitrary holes in a firewall. And the last point is just a joke. There needs to be restriction on web access just as there is for applications. I can't install WoW on my work PC, why is facebook somehow different?

His argument about employees shopping and browsing during work hours is easily taken care of by firewalls and work policies. It actually becomes moot when you take personal mobile devices into account anyway.

5. Should every employee have a browser?

Making a decision about your technology platform based on how easy it will be lock down your employee's freedom to access information on the web is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.

I don't find these reasons to be compelling. Surely there are other reasons against web apps like security.

I would actually like to see a more in-depth critique of web apps and a corresponding one on local apps.

Exactly. I think you can say at least that the value of a web app can be much higher much easier if combined with hardware or a desktop application.

Web apps were a temporary fad. They are good for some type of applications that are similar to document based (e.g facebook, flickr, HN news), but for others, web apps are terrible (twitter, photo editing, making phone calls).

There is space for both types, and web apps are not going to replace desktop apps.

I think "fad" is a little strong. Plenty of folks are using gmail and Google docs, for example.

I do think there are limitatations to running in a browser; World of Warcraft isn't likely to do so anytime soon. But I don't see any reason to believe that more apps need a desktop environment than don't. Rather, I see web browsers gradually getting more and more capable (especially within organizations that can make the choice to skip IE compatibility).

Were? Even if they are part of a fad, it's pretty clear that the fad is still in full swing.

It's totally dying. I got the memo, maybe you're further down the line than me. Wait a year or two, the memo will arrive at your desk soon.

There's no need to be rude about it. What makes twitter better on the desktop than the web?

Comfort.

Everything except the first sentence is right. Normal people have always used computers mostly for document-oriented work. Just the consumption of text on the web is probably dwarfing actual real productivity in GUI applications.

Sure, web-based application sacrifice A LOT. But in return you get dead-simple, cross-platform, accessible (sometimes), no-install apps. What would the GUI developers of 20 years ago trade for those benefits?

The fact that my webapp has literally doubled my profit margin last year makes me think that web apps are a trend with legs.

They are good for some type of applications that are similar to document based (e.g facebook, flickr, HN news), but for others, web apps are terrible (twitter, photo editing, making phone calls).

I'd like to know why you think this is true.

That observation may be true today, but it is getting less and less true every day. The evolution of technology infrastructure over the past decade has been in the direction of making web applications more and more powerful. (Javascript, Flash) The overarching trend points to web apps taking over the domain of desktop apps inch by inch.

Name any popular desktop app and I can more likely than not point to some company or other porting it to the browser.

I definitively believe that there is a future for webb apps. Looking at icloud.com, a "web os", you'll find that there is a potential for many apps to migrate to the web.

We have seen that browsers are getting better at rendering JS, i.e. Google Chrome and Firefox 3.1, meanwhile functionality such as Canvas introduces possibilities of creating more elaborate apps that might require photo editing etc.

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