Jargons of Info Tech industry

[Chris Head]

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John Bokma wrote:
[snip]
>>usage consists of downloading your e-mail. When using a Webmail
>>service, your bandwidth usage consists of downloading the message,
>>PLUS the entire user interface.
> 
> 
> Not necessary when using (i)frames + cache

True. Perhaps Hotmail is not very well designed, but it doesn't use
frames. I'm not really familiar with other Webmail systems, but the one
provided by my ISP doesn't either.

> 
> 
>>Additionally, a user interface operating inside an HTML
>>renderer can NEVER be as fast as a native-code user interface with
>>only the e-mail message itself passed through the renderer.
> 
> 
> Nowadays, more then futile.

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. Even on my 2.8GHz Pentium 4,
using Thunderbird to juggle messages is noticeably faster than wandering
around Hotmail. Complex HTML rendering still isn't absolutely
instantaneous. It's significantly more painful when I use my 433MHz
Celeron. It simply takes a long time to jump between message, inbox,
other message, inbox, other other message, inbox, etc.

> 
> 
>>I mean, the way
>>Webmail works, you're at the message list and click on a message to
>>view. This causes a whole new page, user-interface and all, to be
>>loaded. In comparison, that's like shutting down and re-opening your
>>e-mail program for every single message you want to view!
> 
> 
> This can be designed much better by using iframes, maybe even Ajax.

Agreed. Judicious use of frames (internal or otherwise) or
Javascript-based partial reloads could seriously improve the situation.
They might also provide an easier way for Webmail providers to implement
their pages in valid HTML: if you render the entire e-mail message alone
 in a frame, you don't have to start stripping out pieces of e-mail
because they already exist (html and body elements, for example)

> 
> 
>>Why can't we use the Web for what it was meant for: viewing hypertext
>>pages? Why must we turn it into a wrapper around every application
>>imaginable?
> 
> 
> Because it works?
> 

... and purpose-built client applications (e.g. Thunderbird) don't?
Maybe I'm old-fashioned but I still very much prefer thick clients. They
simply feel much more solid. Perhaps part of it is that thin clients
have to communicate with the server at least a little bit for just about
everything they do, while thick clients can do a lot of work without ANY
Internet round-trip delay at all. Hotmail has to talk to the server to
move a message from one mailbox to another. Thunderbird doesn't. Ergo,
Thunderbird is faster as soon as the Internet gets congested.

Chris
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