[Baypiggies] off topic: JavaScript: DOM vs. innerHTML, Server-driven vs. Client-driven

[Shannon -jj Behrens]

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 11:20 AM, Alex Martelli<aleax at google.com> wrote:
> "The browser just can't hack it" may be true if you do have to care
> intensely for a certain kind of demographics -- the "if IE6 was good
> enough for my gramps it's good enough for me" folks (some
> ridiculously-late-adopters, some trapped in Dilbertian enterprises
> where IT's key role is denying services and making every employee
> miserable).
>
> If your main audience is folks smart enough to use Chrome, FF 3.5,
> Safari 4, etc, or even I suspect IE8 (have not benchmarked the latter
> myself), the argument loses validity.
>
> "The database is the bottleneck": maybe, if you're stuck in the
> slowsand of relational DBs (especially inferior ones, and/or with the
> "Vietnam of CS", ORMs, rather than well-tuned and hand-optimized SQL
> on a serious engine, such as PostgreSQL, Oracle, MS Server, IBM DB2,
> ..., with a real DBA, not a programmer-making-believe-they're-a-DBA,
> overseeing it). Much as I love relational, I suspect (and wish it
> wasn't so, believe me) that the future of scalability is with
> key/value stores such as Google's bigtable, CouchDB, etc, etc. AND
> those are especially suited to dirt-simple, cruddy operations --
> definitely NOT the place to site any business logic (beyond "as
> minimal as you can get away with" indispensable data integrity checks
> to avoid DB pollution).
>
> Modern browsers (including any with Gears on them;-) let you store
> data locally -- so your DB load should also get lighter that way (you
> probably do eventually want a central copy of lots of stuff, as a
> backup and to enable users to switch browsers and computers with ease,
> but that can mostly happen asynchronously, if and when feasible, on a
> best-effort basis)... as long as you do have as much as feasible of
> the logic _close to the data_. If you insist on keeping most all logic
> centralized, if you're deliberately choosing an inferior architecture
> to support IE6 folks, you're doing so at the detriment of the smart
> users to which you could offer a vastly superior UX. And remember,
> with frameworks such as Dojo or jQuery, you won't be completely
> cutting off the dinosaurs -- the site or app will just be slow and
> clunky for them (and if they're on IE6, they're _used_ to slow and
> clunky anyway;-).

/me giggles

Reading your comments is enjoyable, as always, Alex ;)  I think I'll
switch to BigTable (what's the URL again?) and start calling IE6 users
"gramps" ;)

-jj

-- 
In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things
with great love. -- Mother Teresa
http://jjinux.blogspot.com/