21 Nov
2011
21 Nov
'11
11:03 p.m.
On Tue, 2011-11-22 at 00:41 +0300, Louigi Verona wrote:
Hey guys!
I have worked several years as a web developer and continue to create
personal projects actively.
What can I say - the web obviously has lots to offer. However, the
client-side has more promises than
actual accomplishments, especially when it comes to cross-browser
things.
Want it or not, even jQuery has problems, especially on (you guessed
it) IE. The amount of hacks one needs
to put it to make even normal html look the same in FF and IE is
enormous. Experienced html guys might not
notice how much hacks they automatically put into the code.
If you choose to care about IE, life is indeed going to be miserable.
I certainly don't ;)
Not to mention the memory problem. Browsers simply
cannot handle as
much memory as a desktop app can
and you never know if settings of the visitor of your web app will
allow him to not have his browser crash.
As for graphics, each solution available today has loads of issues and
nothing I've seen is satisfactory. Google
stuff is interesting, but how lasting it will be - nobody knows.
I would agree that the web has potential. I would agree that Java
failed as a dream of an ultimate platform for all.
But I would not agree that the web is there already today, nor that it
is close. In terms of actual interaction it is
very, very far away from what even a Java tool like Processing can
offer, not to mention all of Java.
There seems to be the impression that I, or anyone, is arguing that
absolutely every UI ever is best implemented in the browser. Of course,
not, that's silly.
But most audio control UIs are quite simple. All we need is a couple of
sliders and knobs and such. It's quite straight forward and perfectly
appropriate. Transport controls, faders, knobs, XY pads, step
sequencing, toggles, all that kind of stuff. Having remote controls and
plugin UIs and such in the browser would be awesome, and it's not
anywhere near the realm of things too large to be feasible, or too
complicated to be portable (even to that atrocity you mentioned).
If you need very high performance realtime visualization or whatever,
sure, dont use the browser. Duh.
Put differently: nobody is going to be rewriting the main Ardour UI in
Javascript any time soon - but it would make a great control surface.
-dr