Hacker News Reader

"It was like this on the desktop, so the web should change to be more like the desktop because that way I don't have to change."

Or "It was like this on the desktop, so my users demand that it be just that way on the web version, too, so they don't have to change."

View on HN

That's a valid point. But it begs the question: Why are you not writing a desktop app then?

because managing a stateful client is nasty and costly if users cannot or are not allowed to do it themselves.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. Software development is all about compromise.

You can have your cake and eat it too, and you don't have to compromise. All you have to do is recognize where the browser's original intent may be different from your own (doc mgmnt versus transactional database mgmt). Making the browser do the job is very doable, but it is much easier if you recognize why it seems hard.

That's a very different view that what's being argued in this thread, and I agree with it.

Of course, as I already alluded to, I understood you post to push this point, but felt that you sometimes got a little too close to making the suggestion that there was something inherently wrong with the way the web is set up.

Thanks for clarifying.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com