[LINK] RFC: Web 2.0

Craig Sanders cas at taz.net.au
Thu Nov 23 13:52:49 AEDT 2006


On Thu, Nov 23, 2006 at 01:10:06PM +1100, Antony Barry wrote:
> On 23/11/2006, at 11:32 AM, Linda Rouse wrote:
> 
> >The Cumulus software we distribute has just been released with a  
> >new AJAX interface that displays the application over the web - for  
> >a poor HTML page but which has links to the 2 different interfaces  
> >if you click on the images, see
> >http://partner-epoint.canto.com/index.jsp
> 
> 
> The main difference I could see was that the web2 version was  
> incredibly slower. The content seemed much the same but then because  
> it was slow I didn't feel like investigating in detail.

that's because javascript is slow.

i really don't like AJAX sites *becase* it requires javascript for
things that can be just as well with plain html. enabling js opens up
security holes in the js interpreter and encourages people to browse the
web with js enabled rather than disabled by default. it's not as if
you can tell your browser to only run "good" javascript code - if you
enable it, you allow the site to run ANY javascript code they want on
your computer.  if that doesn't give you the creeps, it should.


js also tends to take away control from the end-user - e.g. i'm sick
and tired of seeing sites that present subsidiary information via a
javascript link that pops up a window rather than just a plain link
that i can middle-click on to open in a new tab. it's up to me, NOT the
web developer, to decide whether i want a link to appear in the current
window, a new/popup window, or a new tab.

i can't recall ever seeing one website that relied on javascript where
the javascript wasn't more of a hindrance than a help. it can be useful
for some things (e.g. changing pop-up menus on the fly is kind of nice)
but the cost and inconvenience is too high.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>           (part time cyborg)



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