Simon Morris's Blog

June 2006 Archives

REQ: alt.web-browser.die.die.die

In Where Swing should Venture Eitan Suez ponders the possibilities of making Swing applications deployable as web apps. Flip a deployment switch one way and you get a desktop application, another way and you get a web app.

Now I don't want to attack Eitan's comments directly, but for me his blog raises a more general point about the way user-facing software has been going recently. And so with good humour (and tongue planted firmly in cheek) I feel compelled to ask the following: why does everyone want the web to look and feel like a desktop app?

(Or, put another way: can't we desktop developers have an API all to ourselves, without the web apps mob muscling in?)

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80 Sprites - Beat That!

Go make yourself a fresh brew. This could take some time. This is my first blog for java.net, and I'm gonna start with a biggie...

There's apparently an old Jesuit motto which goes "give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man."

I suppose in a modern consumer orientated society this would roughly translate as "catch them young, and they'll be hooked for life." Certainly many popular brands seem to think so. Casting a glance back to my own childhood, I recall when banks suddenly started offering all manner of goodies to any passing ten year old who would open an account for the princely sum of one pound Sterling (with the Queen's head on, no less.) Why bother? It'll be years before they even get a job - let alone a mortgage, two point four children and an overdraft to feed. The idea, in case you hadn't realised, is to hook them as children and hope you can keep them on the line long enough to reel them in as adults.

(What does this have to do with Java? Be patient... I'm getting to that!)

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