Jargons of Info Tech industry

[John Bokma]

Chris Head <chris2k01 at hotmail.com> wrote:

> John Bokma wrote:

>>>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 can be made much faster. There will always be a delay since messages
have to be downloaded, but with a fast connection and a good design, the
delay will be very very small and the advantages are big. 

> 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.

...

>> 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)

Yup.

>>>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?

if A -> B, it doesn't say that B -> A :-) I.e. that it works via HTML
doesn't mean it doesn't with a dedicated client ;-). 

I live in Mexico, most people here rely on so called Internet cafes for
their connection, and even the use of a computer. For them Thunderbird
*doesn't work*. 

> 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.

Each has it's place. A bug in a thick client means each and everyone has
to be fixed. With a thin one, just one has to be fixed :-D. 

> Hotmail has to talk to the server to
> move a message from one mailbox to another. Thunderbird doesn't.

Depends on where your mailbox resides. Isn't there something called
MAPI? (I haven't used it myself, but I recall something like that). 

> Ergo,
> Thunderbird is faster as soon as the Internet gets congested.

Ah, yeah, wasn't that predicted to happen in like 2001?

Also, unless you have some program that kills spam on the server, you 
have to download all with Thunderbird. I remember a funny day when I got 
2000 messages/hour due to a virus outbreak :-( With hotmail, if you have 
100 new messages you download them when you read them. Or kill them when 
you don't want to read.

-- 
John                   Small Perl scripts: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
               Perl programmer available:     http://castleamber.com/
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