One word: AutoCAD. Not the silly little “draw a line” functions, but the hard-core spatial database, geometric boolean operations, high-performance on huge drawings, extensibility for 3rd parties, etc., etc. that make it a “real” application. Javascript, Virtual Machines, etc. simply aren’t at a place where this kind of stuff is a reality. Maybe it will be someday, but there is so much working against it I can’t see how. The fundamental flexibility of JS is exactly why it doesn’t make sense to build “big” applications with it – it’s simply the wrong tool.
I’ve done hardcore C++ desktop application programming in multi-million lines of code applications, and I’ve done web programming in LAMP and the MS stack for sites that ranges from 0 to 9000 transactions per day (that seems like moderate complexity to me). My honest opinion of the two realms is that, yeah, the bar is considerably lower for web programming. And I tend to agree with the posters saying that’s probably a good thing. There are only a handful of websites in the world that actually require hardcore engineering, most of them can and do get by with less (I wish paypal had some better engineering, but c’est la vie). Lower bars lead to prolification, and I like prolification since it leads to Darwinian selection and improvement of the pool of options.
There is one aspect of web programming where top-notch work is being done: Libraries. Some of the craftsmanship I see in libraries for web development is as good as or better than anything I saw in desktop applications. I’d like to offer my kudos to the folks working on building beautiful codebases for the rest of us to enjoy!
BTW, if KISS is your mantra don’t complain when someone is willing to do it for less than you. I’d rather have “quick and correct” as my matra, if I were still in that fight (I’m not, I’ve been removed from the productive stream). Correct simplification is hard, so don’t undervalue yourself by making it sound trivial.
I think Jeff’s article is a little off-base and leans to the knee-jerk level of response.
Michael can go on and rant however he wants about desktop apps. And while what he says may be true for some web developers, I have worked with a great many and most are converts from software developers.
This is what I know to be true. Software developers have their share of idiots, same as web developers but to say Web Developers do it because they arent smart enough to be software developers is a retarded assertion made by a bitter man who knows he is becoming a dinosaur.
I am a former software developer but I found that i can make a crap ton MORE money working on the web than I ever could as a software developer. I can do more and explore more on the web than I would ever be able to do in the rigid confines of software development. Sure, its not as hard in general, but the creativity allowed in web development and the ability to challenge yourself is certainly there for anyone who wishes to employ it.
Note all of this is conveniently argued with citations from YOUR OWN PAST ARTICLES. This, if nothing else I’ve said, is why nobody but newbies takes you seriously. Just quit, you’re an embarrassment. Not like you read this or care.
Isn’t microsoft moving word and excel online? I heard it on cnet. Of couse, they will still have the desktop apps, but I think they are going to have online ones also.
“Among the biggest changes in Office 2010 is the fact that Microsoft will also start offering Office Web Applications–browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. That means the software should eventually find its way onto Linux-based computers and even the iPhone.”
Note all of this is conveniently argued with citations from YOUR OWN PAST ARTICLES. This, if nothing else I’ve said, is why nobody but newbies takes you seriously. Just quit, you’re an embarrassment. Not like you read this or care.
While I think this post swings from exageration to reasonable point of view quite a lot, I think Atwood’s law is probably true, mainly because of the mobile web. As more and more people use handheld devices to work from, the language that works across the most devices will become the default choice for an application (even applications which have traditionally been desktop apps). Javascript, at the moment, looks like the most likely candidate.
Jeff:
Your statement:
“Pretty soon, all programming will be web programming.”
is clearly wrong. Do you have any idea how many people (including myself sometimes) who are programming machine control and automation for the industry, calculation and simulation software (where speed is essential), etc etc that will probably never move to the web? I would say most programs today are not user programs, and they never will be.
Jeff, right or wrong, thanks for setting the field for a great discussion! It’s always great to see the nerds coming out of their dungeons and proudly branding their tools! This has been a fun discussion
When Jeff knows he’s right, you can see his posts within the comments, lapping up the praise and doling out additional wisdom. When’s he’s wrong, he’s nowhere to be seen. Dan A and Michael have the right of it. Jeff is currently buried so far up his own web-2.0 backside that he fails see the bigger picture, a “sin” he continually rants about on this very blog. Ironically, and something I don’t think has been pointed out yet, is that the very web apps you praise have their internal structure and libraries written in none web app languages. Oddly enough, that qualifies as programming too, doesn’t it?
I don’t think the central issue in this debate is web applications. In fact, I don’t even think it really centers around the differences between high- and low-level programming. The way I see it, the heart of this issue is the lowering of the entry barriers to programming.
When reading and writing was becoming common knowledge after being the privilege of a few, there was the same debate. Many priests and scholars, who were well-trained in these skills, no doubt thought it an abomination that peasants and commoners were allowed to call themselves literate. After all, they were bad at spelling, they hadn’t bothered to learn proper punctuation, and most of them had horrible penmanship. The common people, on the other hand, didn’t understand what all the fuss was about; they could read and write well enough for their own purposes, and they didn’t have to hire somebody to do it for them.
Lowering the entry barriers to reading and writing allow more people to read and write, no matter how poorly they compare to scholars. In the same way, lowering the entry barriers to programming will allow more people to tell computers what to do, albeit in a clumsy way compared to seasoned programmers. If you ask me, that’s ultimately a good thing, and we shouldn’t let the elitism in our own ranks discourage us from making it happen.
Well now we know the difference between having an opinion and having an informed opinion.
The web apps you speak of are really just client server apps with the client hosted in a browser Now if you do not know that then you have no business being a programmer. The Web is not a platform it is a marketing term.
I think you missed his point and haven’t addressed any of his valid grievances.
His rant, which I entirely agree with, may well be almost pointless, as every laudatio temporis acti inevitably is.
But before sadly going back again to “fixing” by trial and error some inherited messy, undocumented concoction of php/perl/python/apache/mysql which happens to be a webapp, can we still sometimes remember of the old good times when application programming was indeed made with all the all-important things the OP mentioned, giving true and deep satisfaction in our job, or envy whose lucky enough to still be programming seriously, predictably, scientifically?
Like with low-cost flights, where their crappy service isn’t any better just because they are cheaper or happen to be preferred by the majority, for whatever reason, webapp are far worse than what we used to do, but we’ve got to go with the masses.
Not every application is “WWW” (Widgets to Wankers on the Web). I work at a company whose software must sometimes chew through a few terabytes of binary data and do intelligent things with it. When that can be done on the web, we’ll think about it.
This is one of Jeff’s silliest bouts of verbal diarrhoea yet. Does anyone else see the irony of somebody like Jeff telling others they have no business programming after displaying his laughable ignorance of (among other topics) cryptography and security practices?
