Comments on: Wasted Effort

By: Udi

Udi — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 22:36:26 +0000

The inherent advantages to web based software (Mainly portability, but also seamless release distribution, social potential and more) mean that once something works well on the web, people will never go back to the desktop.

Unless, like you’re saying, the thing you build for the desktop is in some way revolutionary. Then it might be worthwhile, but not if it’s just an incremental improvement.

By: mcfunley

mcfunley — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:09:08 +0000

The analogy is that the bridge is an improvement on an existing system, and it’s not something that can be built incrementally from what exists.

You are essentially saying that nobody should ever try to come up with a better system when one that “works” exists, which is weird.

By: Udi

Udi — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 17:50:25 +0000

I’m not sure I understand the analogy.

Check this out

By: mcfunley

mcfunley — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:20:14 +0000

That’s kind of like saying that building a bridge is useless because a boat is good enough.

By: Udi

Udi — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:01:02 +0000

Yes, it’s definitely possible to create a better experience on the desktop.

However, doing so requires a lot of effort and in my opinion this would be wasted effort IF there’s already a good web-based solution. I’m talking about things like RSS readers and email clients. If there’s a good one on the web, no one is going to download (let alone buy) your desktop version.

This is certainly not true of every type of application. For instance, I’d argue that no competent web based word processor or spreadsheet yet exists, so this wouldn’t apply there.

By: mcfunley

mcfunley — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 13:23:03 +0000

That’s kind of a generalization, don’t you think? How do you define a competent web app?

It’s hard to imagine a web app that exceeds the quality of the best possible (web-enabled) desktop app in the same space. It’s true that the web app is usually more practical.