Sunday March 18, 2007
Sunday March 18, 2007
What's "Good Enough" ?
I've been reading many blogs of late discussing the merits of the Web UI (usually in the context of AJAX) and whether they are suitable replacements for the classic Desktop app.
Joel Spolsky concludes we're doomed to a life where everything is web-centric and we're just going to have to get used to dealing with what is (IMHO) a sub-standard user experience.
I'm fairly sure most have read Bruce Eckel's Hybridizing Java which concludes that the future is Flash as opposed to HTML. The UI is certainly richer, but the cost of being locked into Adobe and the hybrid which is Flex doesn't make me warm and fuzzy either ...
Meanwhile, Jeff Atwood concludes that the path of least resistance is what will eventually win (and no, not happy about that prospect either), meaning the Web UI. Like Jeff, I wonder why we have to settle on second best.
Personally, I hope we're just in this weird state of discovering (or re-discovering) ourselves and will arrive at a state where the Rich Desktop re-materializes as the UI of choice. We've made a ton of progress over the years in rich graphics, 2D, 3D, hardware (and software) acceleration ... where we've failed (I believe) is in making all that technology accessible to "mere mortals" and as a result:
- We've made it way too hard for your average developer (or worse a designer) from being able to develop a reasonable UI, one with a reasonable user experience that performs (at all)
- Impossible to rapidly iterate on a design, meaning that in the end we either end up with a crappy UI which is largely programmer-built or a sub-standard app built by a designer which integrates poorly with the rest of the system (or is unmaintainable, usually because of automated tools)
- Arrived at systems which are largely hacks, for instance the plethora of XML-derived variants (where XML might be "OK" to some for layout, but lousy as a programming language)
I personally believe we're on (or will be on) the path that takes us to the RIA of tomorrow. Historically, users/consumers accept "Good Enough" as a new technology or product becomes available ... but only for a while. Witness the simple cases of latency, where we've gone through multiple cycles where high-latency was acceptable on early network-based systems but as the technology and volume requirements grew, users required increasingly lower-latency for their (then) desktop apps. With the web, the cycle continues and while for now users are willing to deal with "Good Enough", that trend will not continue. Users will want a richer experience, they will not want to be bound to the idiosyncrasies of the browser model, they will want more direct interaction with their desktop and hopefully they will in time reject being bound into proprietary models for achieving this.
For one such possible future, look at what Chris is doing ... (more later on that specific project ...)
Posted by brewin Mar 18 2007, 09:31:50 PM PDT Permalink Comments [1]
Five things
This one I've been procrastinating ... but I just got tagged for the second time, first by James, and now again by Steve (and no, I'm not going to do mine with video ... Steve obviously has waaay too much time on his hands ...). Time to get it over with I guess ...
1. My first computer job was working for a small retail shop when I was still in high school. My job was fairly simple: I would take an IBM Selectric typewriters and convert them into printers for computers (the process is somewhat described here, but as usual ... it was more complicated than that ...). In principal, it was a grand experiment (for this little company anyway) where people would bring in their Selectric and I would spend the entire day "grafting" solenoids into the machinery ...
2. When I was much, much younger I was in the U.S. Marine Corps (and I think I need to chat with the Commandant at some point ... simply because the web site uses Flash, not Java ...). For the majority of my time, I was in armor (meaning tanks). If you've ever met me, you have to wonder how I ever fit in one of these "wee" beasties ...
3. While in the Marines, I spent a year living in Okinawa, Japan. Has to be one of the best places I've ever lived in (I lived in the northern, most rural part of the island). It's essentially a Japanese version of Hawaii and I lived their with my wife and oldest son (who was born on the island) while we were there. While in Okinawa, I did a stint as (which is odd if you read Rich's blog) a lifeguard (technically Water Safety Instructor), teaching folks, including other lifeguards how to do everything from swim to survive for long periods in the water (which is a good thing for a surfer to know ...)
4. The most interesting place I've surfed so far is Costa Rica. Spent many an hour driving across miles of dusty roads looking for good surf (the term road is being generous). That being said, the most interesting and best parts of the trip was getting to surf by boat, places like Witch's Rock and Ollie's Point (the latter named by the locals for Oliver North .. evidently they knew he was using the location to ship weapons to the Contras before Congress did).
Hopefully, an equally memorable trip is forthcoming (thinking of a 2 week trip driving down the Baja peninsula to places like Scorpion Bay, Todos Santos and Cabo San Lucas either after JavaOne or in the early fall ... although Vinicius Senger of Globalcode in Brazil keeps threatening to take me surfing next time I show up there for a Sun Tech Day)
5. Lastly ... I hate this virus (because in many ways, that's what it is, although obviously it does have some interesting social consequences ... as with all viruses :-) ) called the "Five Things" ... so in my own way of trying to treat this malady, I'm not going to pick anyone else ... so in this thread, I hoping this will be the end of the line ...
Posted by brewin Mar 18 2007, 07:37:49 AM PDT Permalink