Reply to: I hate web front ends

[Charles Foster Kane]

Good when needed.

I find that often they are implemented when NOT necessary (internally) and an older more robust solution is better/faster, e.g. MS Access front end (unbound forms etc.) running on a proper database (Oracle, SQL Server)

MS Access Front-End to SQL Server... Yeah, like, maybe in 1996, I bequeath you the title of Luddite from here on good sir

Seriously though, do you still tune in to the Archers on the wireless, and did you ever finish typing in that code listing for tennis, from Smash magazine, for your Amstrad CPC 464?

[TimberWolf]

No, it wasn't a joke unfortunately.

And that's intriguing - Lubos Motl sometimes posts interesting stuff, and now you've got me wondering what he's found

Right, next stop Firefox. I'm fed up with IE

P.S. He loves to pile features into his blog pages. There are probably more bells and whistles, and God knows what, than string theory vacua. My 3 GHz PC, with 4 Gbyte of RAM staggers under the load of hauling in his page!

Hmm, I was wondering whether the sci.physics.research OwlHoot was none other than the OwlHoot here. Lubos Motl's page takes ages to load in FF for me and I killed it in the end. I may read the page later, though I don't quite recall from my SPR readings of yore whether he was just a little 'different' in his views, or an out-and-out crackpot?

[NickFitz]

Oh, but I should have added that you're much better off with Firefox anyway - I just wanted to defend the IE Team from unjust, as opposed to just, castigation

Seriously, if they manage to do what they're aiming for with IE8, it will be a fine web browser let down by an abysmal user interface. The latter fault will be much easier to fix - I might even delve into the murky depths of the Win32 API and put a decent UI around their new rendering engine myself...

[NickFitz]

I can hardly believe it - After installing Firefox v2, and downloading flash player, all in a couple of minutes, Motl's page loads practically in a flash.

What a pile of tulip IE v8 must be - Totally broken!

IE 8 is currently in its first public Beta - it isn't intended to be used for any other purpose than identifying how it's broken, and reporting the breakage (preferably with a suitably reduced test case) to the IE Team at Microsoft.

Unfortunately, MS's own internal structure is still sufficiently broken that the IE Team haven't been able to find a way to set up a bug reporting and tracking system that's available to the unwashed masses - they got about half-way when they released the IE 7 Betas, but were then forced to shut it down and throw it all away

The important thing is to understand that when they say "Beta", they mean it - it's not like that peculiar attitude espoused by Web outfits that remain in "Beta" long after they have a reasonably stable product. When Microsoft (and, indeed, Mozilla and Opera and Apple) say "Beta" about an application, as opposed to a web application, they mean "This has a good chance of breaking your computer" - and I personally agree with that attitude.

"Beta" with desktop software means "Flaky, unreliable, crashing software", not "You might get a JavaScript error every other Tuesday afternoon", so install it at your peril

[OwlHoot]

I can hardly believe it - After installing Firefox v2, and downloading flash player, all in a couple of minutes, Motl's page loads practically in a flash.

What a pile of tulip IE v8 must be - Totally broken!

[OwlHoot]

I am assuming that that is a joke as I can feel it flying about two feet over my head.

Never mind, very good though.

No, it wasn't a joke unfortunately.

And that's intriguing - Lubos Motl sometimes posts interesting stuff, and now you've got me wondering what he's found

Right, next stop Firefox. I'm fed up with IE

P.S. He loves to pile features into his blog pages. There are probably more bells and whistles, and God knows what, than string theory vacua. My 3 GHz PC, with 4 Gbyte of RAM staggers under the load of hauling in his page!

[Gonzo]

If you think you have problems, try accessing http://motls.blogspot.com

I have Windows XP, using SP2 and bang up to date with updates, but that page freezes Internet Explorer v7. (Perhaps I'll upgrade to IE v8, as someone mentioned that was available.)

I wonder what the problem is though. Any web sleuths care to investigate?

It seems to be something to do with a "presentation" window, which was embedded in the first article yesterday but has now shifted down. (I can no longer see it, as the page freezes solid as soon as I enter it.)

I am assuming that that is a joke as I can feel it flying about two feet over my head.

Never mind, very good though.

[OwlHoot]

If you think you have problems, try accessing http://motls.blogspot.com

I have Windows XP, using SP2 and bang up to date with updates, but that page freezes Internet Explorer v7. (Perhaps I'll upgrade to IE v8, as someone mentioned that was available.)

I wonder what the problem is though. Any web sleuths care to investigate?

It seems to be something to do with a "presentation" window, which was embedded in the first article yesterday but has now shifted down. (I can no longer see it, as the page freezes solid as soon as I enter it.)

[DodgyAgent]

I prefer a nice gooey front end

arse

[bogeyman]

Here's some Web 2.0 gone mad: New Sky TV Listings

Draggable, in Google Maps fashion, and can be filtered, searched, bookmarked etc etc. Plus it has remote record built in if you have one of them Sky+ box things. Which I don't.

It's like an IFRAME on steriods.

[dang65]

Here's some Web 2.0 gone mad: New Sky TV Listings

Draggable, in Google Maps fashion, and can be filtered, searched, bookmarked etc etc. Plus it has remote record built in if you have one of them Sky+ box things. Which I don't.

[r0bly0ns]

Finally

The IE team are pretty good at backtracking these days

They've committed to support CSS 2.1, with parts of CSS 3 that have good support from other browsers - including border-spacing

[max]

I imagine that most of the good web front ends are corporate internal things that never go near the actual internet. So are most of the bad front ends, many of which are laughable/cringeable.

But using AJAX for pretty much everything, as someone else said, is making a lot of new front ends very slick indeed. I'm doing one just now which can switch languages and currencies instantaneously, with no browser reload, as well as doing all the usual filtering on select boxes etc. JavaScript can do a hell of a lot more these days than it could when a lot of people "learned" it (i.e. pasted a few bits of code from a geek forum somewhere).

I've been using this...after not doing web f/e's for 4 years.

http://extjs.com/

Works a treat. Works the same in all modern browsers and looks very slick.

When used with spring MVC and JPA...it's the mutt's

[NickFitz]

Really? Last I looked into it (just after IE7 was released) Microsoft said that they had no plans to include border-spacing in CSS as they believed the W3C were wrong and it shouldn't be in there

Not like Microsoft to backtrack on anything....

The IE team are pretty good at backtracking these days

They've committed to support CSS 2.1, with parts of CSS 3 that have good support from other browsers - including border-spacing

[darmstadt]

What happened to the EU trying to force M$ not to ship IE with Windows?

Until that happens it's like asking someone not to use their own hands. Only those that wish they were terminator bothers with Firefox or other alternatives.

They never quite went that far but you can get XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N, where "N" stands for "not with Windows Media Player." Don't know where though