Ian "Hixie" Hickson Reports On The W3C Rich Client Workshop

Hello,

  allow me to highlight Ian "Hixie" Hickson's blog
story titled "First Day of the Workshop".

  I guess it comes as now suprise that Ian "Hixie"
Hickson is as clueless as ever. 
       
  For example, Ian writes:

  I was quite amused to see that, of all companies,
Microsoft, Red Hat, and Sun Microsystems actually
agreed on something. Namely that trying to standardise
an API for sophisticated applications is simply a
non-starter. The argument, which I agree with, is that
such APIs are simply insanely complicated, and that
making interoperable implementations is nigh on
impossible. Just look at the trouble WINE has had
trying to implement Win32 again — now imagine if you
had to write a spec to actually describe the entire
Win32 API in terms that could actually be implemented
interoperably without reverse engineering the first
implementation as the WINE people do.

   What was funny was watching the other people then
disagree with them. Hint: If three of the most bitter
rivals in the marketplace — all of whom have extensive
experience in the subject in question — agree on
something, then it is probably true.

       
  Well, of course, MicroSoft, Red Hat and MicroSun
agree on pushing their own offerings (that is,
Windows, Gnome and Java) and keeping the market to
themselves instead of building a rich internet for
everyone where it doesn't matter if you use Windows,
Linux or Java.

  Claiming that such APIs are simply insanely
complicated, and that making interoperable
implementations is nigh on impossible is of course a
self-serving lie.
     
  Let's take Sun's Java APIs as an example. What's up
with write once, run anywhere? Does Sun agree that all
the Java APIs are simply insanely complicated, and
that making interoperable implementations is nigh on
impossible? Was Sun lying to us all those years?

  What's up with Eclipse and the Standard Widget
Toolkit API? Isn't such an API simply insanely
complicated, and making interoperable implementations
nigh on impossible?

  How come Eclipse offers the Standard Widget Toolkit
API for aix/motif, hpux/motif, linux/gtk, linux/motif,
linux/qt, macos/carbon, qnx/photon, solaris/motif,
win32/win32, and even win32-ce/win32?

  Is Eclipse the next generation browser? Has anyone
at the workshop asked IBM what the Rich Client
Platform Markup Language (RCPML) thingy is all about?

  Full story @
http://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1086158925&count=1
       
  Any thoughts? Any comments?
             
  - Gerald
   
-------------------
Gerald Bauer
Open XUL Alliance - A Rich Internet For Everyone |
http://xul.sourceforge.net

Received on Thursday, 3 June 2004 00:37:03 UTC