exotribe

One of the drivers behind the dominance of web applications is the statement that "you don't have to install anything". This is an outright lie. Sure, you don't install any executables, create folders, or update the system registry. Instead you download html, css, graphics and javascript and install them into the browser's cache.

The installation is hidden from the user, and as far as they can tell, nothing is installed onto their computer. They see several "waiting for..." and "downloading..." messages in the status bar, but who even notices those anymore? The web application's UI appears bit-by-bit as the source is downloaded.

Waiting for web pages to download can be frustrating and painful. Imagine if you didn't see any portion of the page until the entire page was downloaded? What if you didn't see a page until every page from the application was downloaded? Would the web even be considered usable?

Chris Adamson says:

Flash does nothing to advertise its presence. There's no Adobe/Macromedia loading screen in modern Flash presentations, and you generally have to look at the page's source and search for .swf to verify if something is Flash. Is it possible that the starburst "Java" logo when loading applets is a bad idea? Or is it bad just because it takes so long to load the JVM and an applet that you need a loading screen?

Are Java Web Start, Click-Once and XBAP going to suffer from the same perceptions that all but killed Java Applets? Each of these technologies throws up a "downloading" splash screen and waits until the entire application has been downloaded.

Before web-connected smart clients can challenge web clients, the trickle-feed install must be built into these deployment technologies. Download a bit of the application, display the window and initial screen, and continue downloading the supporting code in the background. Of course, application frameworks will have to make it easy to build compatible applications, and developers will have to be trained on how to design and build download-able applications.

Technorati Tags: Java Web Start Click Once XBAP

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