"Ultimately, I don't see a long term future for HTML as an application development solution," writes David Heller in his Boxes and Arrows article ("HTML's Time is Over. Let's Move On.). Heller argues that HTML, meant as a way to represent documents electronically, is not adequate for application development. He is looking forward to a future of rich clients. Unfortunately, as he lists the HTML alternatives, it becomes clear that none of them are quite ready yet. The best option, Flash, is still more of an animation tool than a application tool.
I think in some respects, Heller is right. HTML isn't quite right for many advanced application development needs. But, on the other hand, it is lightweight and it works all over the place (although there are still big compatibility issues). As he mentions, Flash isn't there yet. And I'm hesitant to make users download big runtime environments to use some of the other options (not to mention the compatibility issues that this brings). So we keep developing in HTML for the time being. Its not perfect, but it is good enough for many applications.
Posted by Karl
January 28, 2003 09:18 AM