[TriLUG] Re: Wachovial Online Banking

Donald Ball balld at webslingerZ.com
Fri Feb 8 15:09:45 EST 2002


On Fri, 8 Feb 2002 roskam at mindspring.com wrote:

> I work on the corporate software side.  The software is being designed
> for most users.  We use a lot of outside consultants (Microsoft).
> The software when tested is tested for I.E. mainly to get working
> first.  Generally, the software if it does not work for Netscape the
> issues are added for future funtionality.  Cost and number of
> customers affected would drive what future funtionality is fixed.  I
> have been involved in many debates about which browsers should be a
> standard and it always boils down to the most customers and cost from
> moving from the code base we already have.  On other products
> questions over Active X, Java, and straight HTML have been debated
> versus functionality and cost the arguments have generally boiled down
> to the fact that it cheaper to program in Active X than Java for
> increased funtionality.

i also work in the corporate web industry, and i submit that unless the
target market is known to use a specific class of browsers (e.g. corporate
intranet when the corp has standardized on MSIE), it is incorrect to use
rely on anything other than standard HTML + javascript on the client.
otherwise, not only are you doing a disservice to a portion of your
potential customers, you're building your castle on shifting sands.

java and activex applets are only suitable for certain niches - corporate
intranets, physics educational sites, etc. in those niches, one can
certainly reasonably choose one or the other. but when developing web
applications for a wide audience, i don't think you should use either.

- donald




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