Gregory Woodhouse wrote:
>Perhaps it has been overstated, perhaps not. To tell you the truth, I
>don't know the answer to this question (I considewr myself competent
>when it comes to UI design, but it is not my area of expertise). But
>instead of ascribing others views to lack of skill or experiernce, I
>would like to think we could make the discussion a little more
>objective.

Gregory, I am sorry if you were offended by my mention of "different skills and
experience". That was not at all my intention. I did not use the word "lack" 
nor do I view
that as a synonym of "different". The people in this discussion obviously do 
have
*different* areas of skill and expertise and different factors in our 
experience that lead
to different biases in our judgement of what is easy to do or difficult or even 
feasible.

Some of us have expertise with Java or Delphi (I don't count myself here, 
although I have
studied and worked with both in the distant past), while some are expert with 
MUMPS or
Fileman or VistA or Linux or Microsoft or some branch of Medicine, etc. You 
appear to have
more knowledge and experience with HL7 and XML and Macintosh than most. I 
believe that I
have more experience and a much deeper understanding of web programming than 
most, however
that is too big of a subject and growing too rapidly to claim mastery of more 
than a small
part of it any more. There are too many possible approaches to software 
development for
each of us to master them all fully and equally and, particularly in the area 
of web based
applcations, they have been growing too fast in recent years to keep up with 
all of the
newly developing capabilities.

>Is it possible to clearly specify what you mean by "rich functionality"?
>How about in the case of a specific user interface?
>Given a clear interface specification, it is possible to address the
>question of whether it can or cannot be implemented with a particular
>technology. Without a clear definition of what we mean by "rich
>functionality", there is little hope of making progress.

I just posted a quote and some references to XUL that should give you a better 
idea of
what I mean. The gamut of web applications is wide open and rapidly growing. I 
believe
that it encompasses all of the client-side technology needed for a complete 
user interface
to VistA or other EMR. Firefox itself is becoming a web application for 
enabling web
applications. ;)



>
>--- Jim Self <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>
>> Certainly, I am one who believes that the difficulty of getting rich
>> interactivity from
>> web applications has been overstated. Some of the differing opinions
>> come from having
>> different skills and experience and some of us perhaps not
>> understanding how easily the
>> applications we envision could be built and used and maintained with
>> a set of tools
>> different from the ones we know best.

---------------------------------------
Jim Self
Systems Architect, Lead Developer
VMTH Computer Services, UC Davis
(http://www.vmth.ucdavis.edu/us/jaself)


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