Python - Web Display Technology

[Paul Boddie]

SamFeltus wrote:
> I guess there isn't much to understand.  If you are satisfied with a
> text based, static image web, that is light on artistic possabilities,
> all that HTML stuff is acceptable.  Perhaps the HTML/JS group will even
> get off their rear ends and bring some decent cross platform graphics
> capabilities to the web one decade?  Perhaps even bring some 90's style
> graphics to the browser one decade?

Well, various browsers do support SVG to differing extents, and some of
the best graphical systems of the 1990s were highly oriented around
vector graphics. Not that SVG is necessarily ready or suitable for
every kind of application, but it's probably the best hope for a
display technology that fits in with the general Web conceptual model,
unlike the messing around having canvas elements just so one can
program applet-like stuff in JavaScript, ultimately leading up to the
day when someone writes a Web browser to run in a canvas element.

But as for Flash: even if one suppresses the legitimate sentiment that
Flash is a "dirty", proprietary technology originating from a mindset
that can best be described as "we don't get this Web thing - let's just
dump some multimedia gadget into a Web page", there's almost nothing as
annoying on the Web as going to a site laden with Flash adverts, having
the browser stop in its tracks (like Michael Schumacher turning the
corner to find the track drenched in treacle), in order to fire up the
dancing, audio-infused animations of meaninglessness, sometimes
bringing the browser itself down with a misfiring interaction through
an interface designed for Netscape Communicator.

I haven't set up Flash on my computer - not even the open source,
reverse-engineered implementations of the technology - despite the
increased obsession with various services that want you to run Flash to
show movie clips instead of just providing standard video format files,
for example. If I visit a site that just has an empty page, because the
"user experience" is just one big Flash applet (usually giving textual
information anyway), then as far as I'm concerned, they might as well
have a big sign saying "we don't get the Web".

> WC3 at Work - Beware Falling Luddites

I'm not saying that the W3C have moved swiftly and decisively to roll
out wonderful new technologies on a timely basis - perhaps because the
corporate posturing that forms part of any such standardisation
initiatives (possibly involving the beloved creators of Flash, whoever
owns them now) makes it fairly difficult to do so - but you should at
least read up a bit more before coming out with such nonsense.

Paul