Re: DesignBais - Impressive


Tony Gravagno" <g6q3x9lu53001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:rn07a25ki2nope0kfb4r1ochsvntjo7qsi@xxxxxxxxxx
"murthi" wrote:
Let's cut to the chase. What can't you do via a browser that supports a
normal application system? ... I have never goten a concrete response.
After 4 years of coding in javascript, I can't think of anything I can't
do.

When you narrow the focus of the question to "a normal application
system", I think you're right. A real business application doesn't
need glitz, so the simplicity of the browser works pretty well. Some
end-users (or at least their management) set the bar much higher, and
insist on an "Outlook Look and Feel" in the browser. I'm sure you
can't produce this, though it is possible.

Keeping this on-topic, one of the reasons why I really like DesignBais
is that it allows us to create a great business interface with no
scripting, no HTML, and no glitz either.

So are you actually agreeing with me here? That the browser may be
"adequate" for business solutions, like DesignBais is because bs doesn't
need "glitz"?

Once again, I feel that the users I've worked with over the
years must represent an oddball section of the community. They don't like
change. They don't want to be bothered with updates. They complain if a
field is moved a few inches over.

I agree that no developer should randomly move fields around on a
screen without letting the user know what's happened, but that's far
from not wanting to be bothered by updates.

[there is no jacket fireproof enough to stop the response which will
be posted to this one...]

Having read your other comments in this thread and come back to this
one, I just realized what the problem is here, Chandru. You keep
telling us how your users are so different, that they're oddballs,
they are resistent to change, that they would get confused by
self-updating software, etc. How is it that you end up with all of
these clients who think exactly the same? No, I think you're just
describing yourself, using that as the standard by which code should
be written, and assuming your users see things exactly the way you do.

You're not alone though and I sincerely don't mean this to be
insulting, just an observation of the way things are in this market.
What many Pick developers do is to present their users with the best
they can do, and when the user says it's OK the developer translates
that into "this is what they want". No... if that's all you can give
them, then that's what they have to accept. When the alternative is
to find a new computer system I think you'll find a whole lot of
solutions are perfectly acceptable to some shops, which is why so many
developers get away with giving their users a CSV file and calling it
Excel integration. The users who don't find such solutions acceptable
quietly go away. They might stick around if they were offered
something else, but most developers don't want to show their users
something that they're personally incapable of delivering, so all
solutions need to fit within some comfort zone. Anything outside of
that conveniently becomes something the users couldn't handle anyway,
and any users who leave are often stupid because they just don't know
how good they had it.

This is why so many VARs are unable to move forward, and DesignBais is
an ideal way to break out of the gridlock. It offers people a way to
get the nice business-appropriate UI, without the glitz that no one
wants anyway, and without the learning curve or coding hassles
associated with scripting and manual HTML coding.

Firstly, "my" users aren't mine. I've hardly ever had my "own" clients, I
work for other companies and it's "their" clients. Maybe you're suggesting
that I selectively choose my clients on the basis of their users being
compatible with my mind-set, a level of prescience and power I wish I had.

And yes, I think in general most "users" are willing to accept what you give
them as long as it satisfies the majority of their needs. Should be obvious.
Nobody has the time and energy to look at all possible solutions, there's
always triage. And a large part of satisfying users/clients is, indeed,
convincing them to accept a product *with* its limitations. Unlike many
salesmen, I would walk away from clients who needs don't match the software
capabilities. Sell to the appropriate clients. Kudos to you if you can still
make a living by giving your users more than they want or need.

As usual, one needs to use the appropriate tools for the project at
hand.

If I hear this once more, I will scream! It's the "have you stopped
beating
your wife" of this forum. Yes, Yes, but No, No and Maybe, Maybe!

We'll probably stop seeing that phrase here when people stop beating
nails with screwdrivers. :) Here we see people talking about whether
browsers are better than thick client or not. It's an invalid
question so it's natural that the mantra is invoked.

Invalid? Did I miss something--it's been decided that thick client is
better? Aren't we comparing the approaches?

I for one, hate the different UI's of all the tools I use on the PC.

This is another one of those comments that I alluded to above.


Stupid Outlook is the worst, simply does not conform to any
standards at all.

40 million people using Outlook might disagree, and some of those
people insist their other thick (and thin) applications should conform
to the same Look and Feel as Outlook. "Outlook L&F" is a standard
that's used and accepted across the entire industry.

You missed the point entirely, but also proved one of mine (that's good!).
Outlook HAS a different standard in its buttons, the way it opens entry
fields eg, and its inconsistencies (having to double-clik to edit some
fields) etc. It's irrelevant whether 4 or 40 million like it, it's the
standard, so we all use it, like Word. Where you proved my point is that
users can and will get used to anything!

[OT]
Also, you can customize the L&F of Outlook to some extent. If you
haven't done so then you aren't using the tool as it was intended,
which is to be versatile enough to conform to various user needs.
That said, Outlook 2003 is more versatile that its predecessors, but
much less than VS.NET. I haven't see Outlook 2007 yet but I'm hoping
it's learned from its siblings.

You cannot customize the inconsistent UI. It'd waste too much time to
particularize, but if you want to I'd delve into it.

That said, all the Microsoft Office applications were developed
independently - Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc have been going
through a constant evolution toward a similar unified model for
usability as well as the coding interface - the DOM of Outlook is far
different than Excel, which is different from Word, etc. This makes
coding into these environments a real PITA for guys like me as well as
for developers at Microsoft who want to "standardize" products that
look very different from one another internally.

T


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