On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 16:50:51 -0500, Sean Schofield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I would classify Gmail as "moderately dynamic", but it's heading in > > the right direction. I'm talking about things like handling wizard > > page changes entirely on the client, up until Apply or OK is clicked; > > drag and drop in the browser; master/detail handling within the > > browser; real-time updates (i.e. not polling). Stuff like that. One of > > the characteristics is minimising, if not eliminating, the number of > > full-page refreshes, which makes page-oriented technologies like JSF a > > whole lot less relevant. > > > > GMail is pretty much a standard web application (even if its a > relatively simple one from an interface standpoint.) Do you really > think these kinds of web applications are likely to be obsolete > anytime soon?
No, I don't. People will still develop web apps using today's technology for a long time, but I don't think that's a reason not to innovate and work with newer, more dynamic technologies. > I'd admit it would be nice, but my feeling is that we are going to be > stuck with full page refreshes (or IFrame refreshes) for a long time. > This is the fundamental nature of web pages and the HTTP protocol. > Yes it sucks but I don't see anything on the horizon that is likely to > change this. There is nothing in the nature of HTTP that has anything to do with pages; it's simply a request / response protocol. Using HTTP doesn't tie you to full page refreshes at all, and it's quite feasible to make HTTP requests "behind the scenes", receive back HTML, XML, JavaScript, or whatever, and optionally pre-process it in the browser before updating some part of the page. This is all here today, and I'm using it today, in production. > I've written a lot of cool WebStart applications using JMS on the back > end. They work great but we had the luxury of installing WebStart on > the all of the customer's computers. I think of the browser as a > crappier version of WebStart. Its just a vehicle for running your > application. The key is that its a world-wide standard. Changing > this will take time. If and when this changes, its likely to be > influenced heavily by Microsoft. I wouldn't count on it supporting > Java ;-) The key to highly dynamic apps is JavaScript, not Java. The browser is actually a very powerful beast, it's just that it's a royal pain to tame it. ;-) -- Martin Cooper > Probably a little bit off topic, but I wanted to respond to your > theory. If your theory is correct, then yes, JSF is a dead-end. I > don't agree with that theory, but I'm not sure that JSF will be the > next step either. That will depend on how fast developers evaluate > and then adopt the technology. And that will depend on how fast JSF > evolves to address various issues (see an earlier post of mine about > current JSF limitations.) > > > Martin Cooper > > sean > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
