Anyone unfamiliar with Mr. Chen might enjoy Joel's article. The first time I read it the bits from/about Chen definitely left a lasting impression:
"Here are a few examples of things you can't really do well in a web application:
1. Create a fast drawing program
2. Build a real-time spell checker with wavy red underlines
3. Warn users that they are going to lose their work if they hit the close box of the browser
4. Update a small part of the display based on a change that the user makes without a full roundtrip to the server
5. Create a fast keyboard-driven interface that doesn't require the mouse
6. Let people continue working when they are not connected to the Internet"
It makes me smile that all of these are now incredibly trivial to implement in web apps :-)
Really? That was not my experience with one month off the grid using a Cr-48 in 2011.