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November 16, 2007
Running out of time?
Running out of time? I don't think that "Ajax and the browsers are running out of time", as this editorial at Ajaxian suggests, but I do think there's constant pressure against the idea that the browsers are the be-all and end-all of web technology. Dietrich Kappe describes how advanced Ajax sites have stability problems over the course of a browser session, regardless of which of the different browsers are used. There are about 60 comments where people describe varying experiences with today's advanced sites in today's popular browsers. The biggest takeaway from the comments: it's hard to predict the audience experience if you can't predict the runtime. The set of deployed browsers have actually increased their common capabilities over the past three years -- it's better than ever before. But sites are making more HTTP request calls than ever before too -- sometimes over a hundred requests per page -- and developer desires are outstripping the improvements in clientside runtimes. The thing that's "running out of time" is the odd idea that the different browser engines can do it all. Look at today's deployed browsers for what they can actually do for us today -- which is a lot! -- rather than for the varying promises each one offers us for some day in the future.
Posted by JohnDowdell at November 16, 2007 10:48 AM