Another php problem?

[Lan Barnes]

On Mon, Mar 25, 2002 at 01:16:09PM -0800, DJA wrote:
> This all makes me chuckle. I used to support (as in write, debug,
> maintain, administrate and hold users' hands) a heavily used multi-user
> database for a local aircraft manufacturer here in San Diego. The
> database was Paradox 3.5 (DOS), running on mostly IBM PS/1s (8086
> PC-XTs) and up, MS-DOS 3.x-6.x, 512K-4MB RAM, 5MB harddrives (some
> hardcards), no floppy drives, all across a 1MB network run by Novell
> 3.11. This was all through the late eighties and most of the nineties.
> 
> The database app itself, was written in PAL (Paradox Application
> Language) script, and was written in-house.
> 
> And it was all pretty fast. Actually, with a 386SX-25, and 2MB RAM it
> was more than fast enough. And I could do all client side upgrades, over
> the wire, especially if I had Proxy. Hell, when we upgraded to a 10MB
> network and most computers were 4MB 386DX-33s, it was cookin'.
> 
> So, I don't get too impressed by today's highly complex Web-based apps
> that too often fall all over themselves just to work. I'm not saying
> that you can't do some pretty heavy duty stuff today using Web-based
> applications, but that sometimes it helps to have a little perspective
> to keep your feet on the ground.
> 
> To a certain degree, despite the massive improvements in technology (CPU
> speed, drive capacity, RAM prices, etc.), we really haven't come very
> far in the last ten years.
> 

I have often shared similar reflections, and I completely agree with you. But I
don't blame HTML or web apps for the problem. I blame people (yet again):

1. Lazy "programmers" who want to solve every problem in the only/latest
language that they know.

2. PHBs who buy into every trendy buzz word fest that comes down the pike.

Web-enabled apps are a godsend for niches where the app must run over the
intERnet (the Big Bad Web, not some internal intRAnet) and/or must support
multiple unknown client OSs. But even that latter can be supplied by
intelligently applied cross-platform scripting languages.

Still, the mindless sheep plunge forward in writing complex apps that *need*
security in simplistic web interfaces that a high school student could crack in
20 minutes.

<sigh>

-- 
Lan Barnes                 lbarnes at san.rr.com
Icon Consulting, Inc       858-273-6677

Never help a child with a task at which he
feels he can succeed.
                     - Maria Montessori