Pinderkent

I recently wrote about Pyro Desktop. Pyro is essentially an effort to merge the desktop and the Web, which I think is a poor idea. I've gotten some interesting feedback on that article from others, and I'd like to address their comments.

The first comment is from Manuzhai, over at Reddit. It focuses on the suitability of the Web as an application development platform. The basic suggestion is that while the browser may not have been an adequate platform in the past and even the present, the continual evolution of JavaScript will change that.

I do agree, to some extent. We are seeing an evolution of JavaScript. But the problem, I think, isn't so much about change that needs to still happen. The problems we see are inherent to the very nature of HTTP, JavaScript, and the concept of a Web browser. They can't be solved by evolution alone.

What's missing is the support necessary for large-scale application development. JavaScript is excellent for adding a small degree of interactivity to an otherwise static Web page. But we start running into problems when we push it beyond that. We end up with the problems we see from many Web apps today, even those developed by well-funded companies with some of the top talent. When using a technology such as AJAX, such problems include excessive memory consumption, a lack of responsiveness, security issues, excessive CPU consumption, and so forth.

It'd be one thing to suffer some performance, reliability and quality loss were there major gains being made in other areas. But that's just not the case with Web applications. We don't get an increase in developer productivity. It's quite the opposite; complex Web applications are often far more difficult to effectively develop, implement, debug and maintain. Likewise, the user experience is often inferior to that when using equivalent desktop software.

The only way to fix many of these issues would be to strip away the browser, to strip away JavaScript, to change the nature of HTTP and the related conventions. But by that point we've essentially changed everything about the browser. Thus I would tend to think that the problems we encounter are inherent to the concept and idea of the Web browser.

The second comment, by beza1e1, was left as a reply to the article itself. It focuses on the only benefit we see from Web apps: accessibility from essentially any Internet-enabled computer. For people on the go, it is essential to have access to your information rapidly and effectively. But we don't need the Web for this, and we certainly do not need Web applications.

In the past, I've written about how easy and effective it is to just use existing, decades-old technology to access your typical desktop applications from virtually any Internet-enabled computer. All we need to do is use proven technologies like SSH and X11, or VNC. We get the benefits of our full-featured desktop apps, with the high degree of connectivity many of us need, while having far greater control over how our important (and often private) data is stored and managed.

In closing, I would like to thank those two individuals for their comments. They provoked some interesting thought and consideration on my part, and hopefully for you, as well.