[
Lists Home |
Date Index |
Thread Index
]
Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
> I wasn't part of the initial web browser design history,
> so I'll have to leave that to those who were to confirm or
> deny.
As long as I have been using the Web it has been possible to return any
content-type and web browsers have supported *at least* HTML, plain text
and one or two graphic formats, plus all other formats through external
viewers and plugins. And AFAIK, this was already "standard practice"
from email so it is only logical.
>....
> A good example is having a language that uses SQL statements
> as built in statments of the language instead of building
> up pages of quoted strings. (N-tier is sort of a combination
> of all of this in which much of the client-side business logic
> goes to middle tier objects which the thin client language
> then calls as web services. Catalog them with URLs if you
> like. I still can't fathom anyone preferring building up
> scores of HTML pages with single forms in them over a client
> that handles such forms natively.
I don't think anyone prefers doing that for its own sake. They do it for
all of the reasons I've been harping on. That's why there are so many
technologies out there for helping you to avoid "scores of HTML pages
with single forms" and yet integrating the virtues of "Windows client"
applications:
http://www.internetwk.com/webDev/INW20020730S0001
http://www.xulplanet.com/tutorials/xultu/
http://books.slashdot.org/books/02/10/15/0124228.shtml
http://java.sun.com/applets/
http://www.kevlindev.com/gui/
Most are still preliminary or rough in one dimension or another but I've
seen spreadsheets that look like Excel and mail interfaces that look
like Outlook.
Paul Prescod
|