RIA VS OS

... have you ever thought about it ? I did few times in my 11+ years of RIA centric career!
Even if it's like comparing potatoes with tomatoes I'd like to share my thoughts about it, would you mind ?

What we always laughed about OS

• the blue/gray screen with an incomprehensible error message


• the Message Box with some rant about some memory address failure


• the unresponsive OS due some broken application able to make everything else stuck regardless the number of CPU and thread the OS can handle


• the "quit program" explicit action that does not quit the program


• any sort of security issue


• the change/update that requires a system reboot

What we are always "scared about" online

• the white screen due some JS/CSS failure for the current browser


• the forgotten alert or console.log inside some try catch with some rant about generic error message (or even worst, the unmanaged error)


• the unresponsive DOM/web page due some broken piece of JavaScript able to make everything else stuck regardless the number of CPU and WebWorkers the Browser can handle


• the "close window/tab" explicit action that takes ages due some greedy onunload operation


• any sort of security issue


• the change/update that requires a page reload

We are all in the same field

Architecture matters, experience matters, performances matter, investigations matter, code quality matter, unit tests matter, UX is essential, and UI only attractive.
This is the software development world, no matters which language, no matters which customer, no matters which company ... isn't it? So why things keep being the same in every software field ?

Delivery, delivery, delivery !

The main reason many applications out there, web or not, will rarely be that good.
The scrum purpose is to make theoretically well organized baby steps and the agile often utopia due constant, drastic, changes you may want to face during an already planned task while you are implementing the task itself.
The time ? The worst enemy when it comes to quality. As I wrote in September 2009 we are loosing software quality due temporary solutions that last forever, decisions made without real world use cases to consider and everything else web developers are complaining, as example, about W3C decisions.
Is W3C that bad ? I think it's great, and I think we should all appreciate the Open Source effort we can read, support, or comment, on daily basis as is for JavaScript future if you are tough enough to face people proud by default about their decisions ... they can understand, they can change their mind.

The direction ?

Too much new stuff in too short time that could imply future problems when it comes to maintainability and backward compatibility, the day somebody will realize: "something went terribly wrong here!"
The legacy code that blocks improvements, the country or corporates stuck behind old, deprecated, un-secure, old pseudo standard that are causing them more damage than saving.
Is everything going to produce cheap with screwed up quality? Well, this is apparently the tendency about clothes, cars, and something I always wondered about: if your Master/Phd is from the most expensive and qualified institute in this world, how would you feel to work underpaid in some emerging country able to provide everything you have been instructed for in 1/10 of your salary and with much higher units per months ?
Either that institute won't be worth it anymore, or you gonna feel like everything you learned did not really make sense.
This is a potential side effect of out sourcing too, the cheap alternative to a problem that many times is not truly solved, simply delegated and delivered with lower quality but respecting, most of the time, the deadline that once published will make max 70% of customers happy, loosing 30% until they'll face same problems with next "brand" they decide to follow.

Dedicated to

All those persons out there that do their best in daily basis believing in their job, whatever it is.
All those persons underpaid still able to put best effort and provide results regardless the country/economy situation.
All those workers that would like to have more time to do things better, and all those Open Sources/Standards Maker that should be more distant from this frenetic delivery concept, and a bit more focused on doing things properly and able to last much longer ... we would not need so many changes, software speaking, if things were already great and this is what I have always tried to do with all my old projects, often forgotten, still working after 5 or more years of untouched code, and under newer versions of the same programming language.
I had more time back at that time, and things are still working.
I am missing products like the original Vespa, out of Italian company that can still run in your city street and with 30 years on its shoulder: can your cheap scooter, software, architectural decision, do the same?