RE: Wasting half a trillion dollars?

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

Yep.  Done that.  What do I get?  an expensive to build 
and debug, hard to maintain VB3 Application.     
We can do a lot in the browser.  We can't do it as well.   

Developers are trendier than New York fashion models. 
What wears well on the runway doesn't always wear well 
on the dance floor or in the office.   The dilemma is 
not having good metrics for knowing when to choose 
fat client/persistent connection technology over 
thin client/stateless connection technology, but moreover, 
knowing when the first should dominate the enterprise 
and the second should be simply a window to the rest of the 
world, maybe just a warehouse one ships data to but never 
uses for business.  Given ten years of trying to secure 
the web and it is still being hacked, a warehouse on the 
outskirts of town at that.

As for B2B schemas, the issue is not the 
technology itself.   We can make that work.  The issue 
is telling the one or two frontrunners in an industry 
that because of their de facto status by market position 
they have to submit their data designs to the public 
and enable competition that has not invested in the 
learning curve of the subject domain.   It is like 
asking you to smear yourself in bear pheromones and go 
hiking on the Appalachian Trail: hard work, uncomfortable 
beds, and you can never close your eyes to rest.

A little Objectivism is a healthy thing.

Len Galt
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


-----Original Message-----
From: Anatole Tartakovsky [mailto:anatolet@teamcti.com]

I agree that for real world back-office type database enabled applications
"fat client" beats "server-only" hands down. However, I would not discount
browser as "the best business application platform". Late versions of IE
(i.e. 5.5+) CAN be effectively used for "fat client" types of applications.
Few things often overlooked by "cross platform/browser" developers: