> I fail to see how web apps are a hack at all. (...) Sure, they're not the "original purpose" of the web, but they work awfully well for things like GMail, GDocs, GMaps, etc.
Well, you realize all the products you mention were only possible because someone figured out a hack (XMLHttpRequest), and now everybody relies on something that wasn't thought out in any shape or form? Can you see how fragile is the software stack an entire web industry is basing itself on?
Also, I don't find GMail, GDocs or GMaps the epitome of good UI and interaction models, I can point a handful of quirks (GDocs is particularly bad.). I don't think these products withstand a round of user testing, people just take it for granted because they are provided for free. When a better alternative shows up (Sparrow), people flock to it even if it's a paid app. Of course, Google killed it, they are web app zealots after all and need the revenue from the ads.
Arguments about the hacky-ness and fragility of web apps are always extremely silly.
Unix was also a hack. C was also a hack. Windows 95 was also a hack. Windows NT had better design, but with hacks bolted on to make it compatible with Win 9X. Java was a hack. Linux was a hack. The Internet itself is the biggest hack of all.
In fact I dare you to name one successful platform that wasn't a hack. Because from where I'm standing, the platforms that weren't hacks failed, in addition to being on the whole horrible.
> I don't find GMail, GDocs or GMaps the epitome of good UI and interaction models, I can point a handful of quirks
With all those quirks, GMail killed the desktop email client for me. For the last 4 years I haven't been able to use any other client. Even on my iPad, before the latest "native" GMail on iOS I was using the web version, simply because Apple's Mail app wasn't doing threaded conversations well.
For all the quirks of the web version of Google Maps, at least it is available everywhere. Just ask the poor schmucks that were in a hurry to upgrade to iOS 6.
Same argument goes for GDocs. It's available everywhere and it allows for efficient collaborative editing. You just open a browser and you're good to go. It doesn't even have to be your browser. I do value this a lot.
> I don't think these products withstand a round of user testing, people just take it for granted because they are provided for free.
I'm a Google Apps customer and I also pay for Google Drive, if it matters. And quite the contrary, people receiving stuff for free tend to be more self-entitled and critical. That people don't voice too many negative opinions on these products is kind of shocking, because either Google has a really good PR department or these products do in fact satisfy most users.
> When a better alternative shows up (Sparrow), people flock to it even if it's a paid app
XMLHttpRequest is not a hack. It was deliberately developed by Microsoft as part of Internet Explorer to enable desktop-like functionality in Outlook Web Access. [http://www.alexhopmann.com/xmlhttp.htm]. It was then copied by Netscape, and it spread from there.
> XMLHttpRequest is not a hack. It was deliberately developed by Microsoft as part of Internet Explorer to enable desktop-like functionality in Outlook Web Access.
I believe you tried to correct me, but you proved my point even further.
Desktop-like functionality on a software meant to navigate between linked documents is simply a broken interaction model.
>When a better alternative shows up (Sparrow), people flock to it even if it's a paid app. Of course, Google killed it, they are web app zealots after all and need the revenue from the ads.
Sparrow? It existed for a couple of years before being bought by Google and people hardly "flocked" to it. It was mostly a marginal app. The overwhelming majority of OS X users either used Mail.app or Gmail on the web.
Google just brought it for the talent and to get some better native app tech. Not because people were ...flocking to Sparrow and lessening Google's revenue. I doubt there was even a dent to their revenue.
>Well, you realize all the products you mention were only possible because someone figured out a hack (XMLHttpRequest), and now everybody relies on something that wasn't thought out in any shape or form? Can you see how fragile is the software stack an entire web industry is basing itself on?
How is that different from, anything else, really? The first wheel was also a hack. Fire was also a hack (hey, let's bang this two stones together).
XMLHttpRequest was not a hack. It was a feature engineered my Microsoft that people found another use for. After that the hack status was gone: it was standardised, documented, best practices were written, an interchange format was invented for it (JSON), etc.
Well, you realize all the products you mention were only possible because someone figured out a hack (XMLHttpRequest), and now everybody relies on something that wasn't thought out in any shape or form? Can you see how fragile is the software stack an entire web industry is basing itself on?
Also, I don't find GMail, GDocs or GMaps the epitome of good UI and interaction models, I can point a handful of quirks (GDocs is particularly bad.). I don't think these products withstand a round of user testing, people just take it for granted because they are provided for free. When a better alternative shows up (Sparrow), people flock to it even if it's a paid app. Of course, Google killed it, they are web app zealots after all and need the revenue from the ads.