Linked by mufasa on Mon 10th Aug 2009 12:25 UTC
The web browser has been the dominant thin client, now rich client, for almost two decades, but can it compete with a new thin client that makes better technical choices and avoids the glacial standards process? I don't think so, as the current web technology stack of HTML/Javascript/Flash has accumulated so many bad decisions over the years that it's ripe for a clean sheet redesign to wipe it out.
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Member since:2009-06-09
Why would you not compress the binary format?
Of cause you can do that, if it makes sense.
A typical HTML page contains almost entirely text. Not markup - text. Content. That wouldn't change just because you're using a binary format, that binary format would still contain large amounts of text.
The solution? Compress it!
The solution? Compress it!
Well, HTML is somewhat okay for documents, which it was meant for. However, the markup is dominant in most dynamically generated HTML pages. I.e., this osnews editor page is 366 lines of markup, with very little content (the quote of your comment :-) ).
Then you end up with a compressed text format, and a compressed binary format, which are about equal in size. Both are easily machine-readable. Only one is human-readable. Simply using a binary format is not going to make the tools magically better, so you're really not going to get any better tools than we have now.
In the case of documents I agree. However, XML is missused for computer-to-computer communication and many HTML pages are mainly formating markup.
I don't talk about tools. I talk about performance and useability; Smaller server load and better responsiveness in the browser (client).
Edited 2009-08-11 02:51 UTC
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Member since:
2007-09-08
Why would you not compress the binary format?
A typical HTML page contains almost entirely text. Not markup - text. Content. That wouldn't change just because you're using a binary format, that binary format would still contain large amounts of text.
The solution? Compress it!
Then you end up with a compressed text format, and a compressed binary format, which are about equal in size. Both are easily machine-readable. Only one is human-readable. Simply using a binary format is not going to make the tools magically better, so you're really not going to get any better tools than we have now.