Originally Posted By: hybrid8
Originally Posted By: JeffS
Situation 2 is where we're going to end up, and it sucks (imo) because we're still tethered to a language that was never designed for applications.


The web wasn't designed for applications. Many times people are trying to shoehorn what belongs on the desktop into a web browser. Adobe bought Macromedia because of Flash and only because of Flash. They saw how ubiquitous it was getting. MS likely developed Silverlight for pretty much nothing else than to compete in the same space.

If you need something that so advanced that it can't be done in Javascript or on the server side, then re-consider using the default web browser. Develop something to download and launch.

I agree 100% here. The problem is, people are demanding apps to be done in browser even when a desktop app would be better. I would be more than happy to keep the web within the confines of what HTML does well, but the people who pay my bills may not allow it. I've actually been fairly fortunate in my ability to avoid most of the craptastic technologies for writing web apps. I avoided asp classic completely and only built the smallest of apps with asp.net. I did write a huge jsp app, unfortunately, and that was enough to convince me that writing web apps in browser fundamentally is a broken concept. At the end of the day, web apps are all the rage and it's what product owners demand, even if there isn't a good reason to do it.
_________________________
-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.