[Baypiggies] native GUI vs. web browser

[K. Richard Pixley]

I want to reiterate something I said in the middle of another post.

"Browser based development" today is really just code for "microsoft 
based development".  If you routinely use macintosh or linux, or are 
allergic to microsoft as I am, you quickly learn that "web based 
applications" really aren't portable at all.  Most aren't written to be 
portable as that's not part of the design goal.  Rather, the design goal 
is rapid development for a microsoft based market.

Witness the miscommunication earlier where someone wrote about windows 
api being "portable" across operating systems, where what they probably 
meant was "portable across microsoft operating systems".  This is part 
of the "microsoft centric" perspective which is so often associated with 
"web based development".

Yes, there are other cases and there are applications and frameworks 
that genuinely aim to be cross operating system, and some even come 
close.  But the primary thrust is still not about portability, it's 
about development time.

--rich