On Sep 3, 2008, at 9:56 AM, Damon Dimmick wrote:
But I also agree that the changes are aimed at developers, and they
will
have to drive the possibilities for this app.
Then they are at very large disadvantage. Developers and designers are
forced time and again to "make it work across the board." I can't be
the only one who sits there and tries to tell clients/bosses/
executives/investors "We can do all sorts of cool stuff if you only
let us ignore IE6" only to win that argument maybe 5% of the time. I
can't be the only one who is time and again annoyed by the 1% to 2%
differences in how Firefox, Safari and IE handle certain aspects of
the spec, 1% to 2% difference that effectively kills a design approach.
Again, Microsoft put a massive amount of work into the application
development environment for IE from late 1998 all the way through 2005
or so before finally giving up it seems. (HTC Behavior files anyone?)
Why? Because there's a point that making it work for one browser at
the expense of others simply becomes untenable and undesirable in the
trenches. And today we finally got the "web standards" mantra through,
so we are now stuck with the limitations it implies on how fast or
much we progress forward. (Which generally is a good thing taking the
long view.)
So Google has to make Chrome the next browser with all of the
limitations that requires or change direction. Right?
If Chrome wants to *help* developers break this new ground -- one
which I'd be all for in case that wasn't obvious -- Google would
simply change nothing about Chrome but change everything about their
marketing and discussion of it.
All Google would have to do is stop calling Chrome a "browser" and
start calling it a "web application development platform" that can do
browser like things. The thing you'd aim for in building the next
Google Docs or Google Maps or whatever else Google wants to promote in
their quest to be the next Microsoft. In the minds of the end user,
it's not the next browser, it's the next *thing.* That's a very
powerful position to work from. Google could more easily play the game
of being just enough of a web browser, but being more at the same
time, buy room for people in the trenches to not have to constantly
worry about stuff like a Back button and we can all spread our wings.
They could play that game because they've changed the expectations of
what it should be. We can play the game of where we can break current
web browser conventions for more traditional and richer desktop
applications paradigms and how far we can go before end users feel its
too much change too soon.
Google simply can't do that if Chrome is Browser #4.
IMHO.
(Random single data point: Last night, I had a group of four friends,
three of which who are not techies discussing Chrome. The three non-
techies didn't like Chrome because it was too different from Firefox
and they missed their add-ons. The fourth was trying to convince them
it was better based on the merits of the technology and the engine. He
must have spent 15 minutes trying to persuade them, but what he didn't
get was that they had no idea what he was talking about in the first
place.)
Give those of us who make digital things the opening we need with our
clients, bosses, and those that write the checks, to work with it and
innovate for it without being tethered to making whatever we do there
also work for everything else.
But who knows, maybe Google honestly thinks the world needs a fourth
(or fifth) browser? If so, all of the possible innovation for it just
got stopped cold due to the realities of design and building shipping
product in that market space. Sure, progress might increment forward,
but Google would be handing over all possible innovation in this realm
of new fangled "web" application development (known before as RIA) to
both Adobe and Microsoft.
--
Andrei Herasimchuk
Principal, Involution Studios
innovating the digital world
e. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
c. +1 408 306 6422
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