Level Extreme platform
Subscription
Corporate profile
Products & Services
Support
Legal
Français
Rich web clients the future?
Message
From
11/04/2002 19:23:42
John Ryan
Captain-Cooker Appreciation Society
Taumata Whakatangi ..., New Zealand
 
 
To
05/04/2002 14:39:09
Joel Leach
Memorial Business Systems, Inc.
Tennessee, United States
General information
Forum:
ASP.NET
Category:
Other
Miscellaneous
Thread ID:
00641584
Message ID:
00644024
Views:
13
Joel

As somebody who actually developed and deployed a Java rich web client application, I can tell you the reason we had to abandon it was:

1) Microsoft. IE3.01 fixed some security glitches but also introduced a bug that caused a GPF with Java applications. The patch took months and needed a web connection to download; my customers were hospitals at a time when firewalls were primitive and PCs that could access patient dats could not access the internet. In conscience we could not advocate a mechanism that might get broken like this.

2) Performance. We used some cool Java stuff with treeviews etc. but the initial load took forever with statusbar busily detailing what felt like hundreds of downloads that could take many seconds. Too slow if you only want a result. In the end, pure HTML competitors did single-station demos that just looked faster.

3) Cost. It took a looong time to get things done. great fun for developers who essentially conducted their hobby at my expense, but a serious loss in commercial terms.

We deliberately chose Java to minimise network traffic (we shipped lookup tables etc once, then passed small coded data streams) and shift display processing to the client for maximum performance on busy hospital 10BT networks. Many of the complaints re web apps today (round trips, huge network use, limited richness at the client) were avoided with Java.

But it wasn't to be.

Once dotNET is actually installed on client PCs I hope that dotNET does usher in a new era of efficient client-side apps that do not need to refresh the whole visual display every time the user saves, and include all the stuff we take for granted in fat client.

Regards

JR
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us.
"
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
Previous
Next
Reply
Map
View

Click here to load this message in the networking platform