| Web 1.0 was not as beautiful as you remember. Most websites had blinking text, bordered tables, under-construction icons and pictures of cats. Around 1998 people started to realize there was more power than just serverside includes and hypertext links to other URLs (they weren't URIs yet). The problem was, people had to use creative thinking and a bit of duct tape to make it all work. There were battles over valid code vs "whatever, it works", and eventually everyone just sort of accepted that standards won't keep up with innovation. That's about where we are today (browsers are getting better at supporting draft-level innovations, which is a hell of an indication of what they think of this stuff). Page loads are wasteful, often reloading and redrawing 90% of the same content just so you can see page 2, and the whole window flashes and spins until its done. Anchors are used for compatibility, and when used correctly, are done so for the very handy fact that the server doesn't need to care about what comes after the "hashbang". Yes, bad error handling is bad. But, do you remember spending 20 min filling out a form only to have the next page after submit show an error, "sorry, the server could not handle your request", and hitting the back button showed a nice blank form? That's why we do it differently today. Pagination is a terrible UI. "<< < 1 2 3 ... 7,600 > >>" is not only useless unless you want the first or last page, it also takes multiple reload and redraws to get anywhere in between (try getting to page 3,475, or even trying to comprehend what is on that page by the time you get there). Client-heavy apps are actually embracing the beauty of hypertext; they don't require you to download and install new mobile apps, because they work in the browser you already have. I think you're romanticizing the simple web and damning web applications based on the assumption that they are all poorly developed. The relevant argument I see is that web application developers should pay more attention to the non-developer, end user experience. I think we're making good progress with "awfulness.js" sites. |