"HTTP is not NFS" is a technical challenge that is potentially solvable. With single page apps the reload button is becoming increasingly irrelevant anyway though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS
And NeWS was better in the sense that it used PS for everything rather than an unholy mess of JavaScript, CSS, HTML, etc etc.
Well the web is supported everywhere because it was simple. The fact that it is available everywhere (which is actually pretty amazing and unique in the entire history of media if you stop and think about it) meant people kept pushing the boundaries. The limitations caused standards to be pushed forward. Wide use of the standards means no platform can break free from supporting it (Microsoft did their best for almost a decade!).
Obviously it looks like a Frankenstein monster from an engineering perspective, but it doesn't matter because that's where the investment is going. The good news is it will evolve and improve, and soon enough the grey beards who remember that there could have been a better way will all be dead; a lot like UNIX actually ;)
edit: I'd appreciate if bitter GUI developers would respond rather than misdirect their anger at the down vote button.
>The good news is it will evolve and improve, and soon enough the grey beards who remember that there could have been a better way will all be dead; a lot like UNIX actually ;)
That sounds like some sort of evil plot. For that matter my beard isn't anywhere close to being gray and I know that things could have been better. And if you didn't have +8000 karma I would think you were trolling.
That you're not just makes it worse.
You're the one who asked. If thats what I got out of it it's probably what the people downvoting got out of it too.
For what it's worth maybe the intended message would have come through better if you were saying it in your voice with tone and inflection rather than the way I read it as words on the screen.
So dev time, well the last THIRTY YEARS of dev time haven't gotten me any anything I didn't have already.
For example, what if you want to use your spreadsheet when you're not home? Never happened to you? Well, it happened to others.
Or to use my previous analogy, you're essentially saying that because you can build your own custom designed car from parts, pre-built cars are useless.