Forums

On Friday 05 July 2002 17:10, Shawn Rutledge wrote:
> I agree. The few applet exploits that have been discovered have been
> pretty tame curiosities. I think the fear of Java is just a knee-jerk
> reaction, or maybe related to the slow start-up times on Netscape 4.x,
> or its broken threading model which can allow applets to hog CPU time.

I think you hit the nail right on the head.

> For performance reasons I also agree plain HTML is better when you can
> use it, but in some cases you need more interactivity than that. But
> of course chatrooms can be built with frames, one frame pulling data
> from a CGI in real-time as the conversation progresses, and another frame
> with the form for posting a comment. But some people get their panties
> in a knot about frames too, which I also don't understand.

This is a slightly better idea (Yahoo! Chat used to offer the HTML option). I
would also point out that the Macromedia Flash chat rooms I have seen seem to
work well.

Concerning frames, it isn't that we have a problem with them. The problem
stems from the same source that the hate of Flash comes from: bad design.
Oftentimes, the use of Flash and/or frames is an attempt to cover up a poor
implementation of a web site. In your example, frames would be perfectly
acceptable.

Actually, skimming through this seems to sum up the frames issue:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9612.html

> Also why re-invent the wheel.. general-purpose IRC is better and
> perhaps more efficient than single-purpose chatrooms isn't it?

Now there is an idea! I love it! There are plenty of great IRC clients out
there just waiting to be used.

On that note, what is the advantage of a mailing list over an NNTP server? If
we were using Usenet, then this whole discussion about overloading people's
mail servers would never have happened. :-)

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