[sperry]

Originally Posted by Dean

This discussion started because you couldn't be bothered to put the schedule in a web friendly format that would have taken 8 seconds. Would it have been perfect, probably not, but that is what translators, exporters, compilers, etc. do. That is my point.

What you put in one end may not match what comes out the other side and is bound to be less than optimal. Heck, since you can't control the "interpreter" or browser that "runs" the "binary" that is the HTML, you have no prayer of ensuring reliable output without quite a bit of testing. And by the way, I retract my earlier concession. HTML is still code, not a "binary". HTML is an interpreted language with browsers being the interpreter.

What? If a browser doesn't output what the html tells it too, it's a broken browser. And yes the HTML is a code that will be interpreted, but it needs to be efficient because it's transmitted over the line. Because the interpreting happens at the end user, as a developer one should strive to generate efficient HTML, just in the same way one should strive to generate efficient binaries.

Originally Posted by Dean

Bloat is bloat, whether it is created by you choosing to put remarks in your hand coded HTML or it is created by the word HTML export translator.

Sure, I comment my HTML in order to make it easier for me to update later on... it's bloat. But I'd never embed the state of my spelling and grammar check engines in my output HTML. Take a look at that Word output I posted earlier. It's *ridiculous*.

Originally Posted by Dean

OMG. I deal with developers using modern tools every day. I am using generic terms. What would you prefer I call the tool that creates your binaries? A "Studio", "Project builder"? Whatever....

Oooh, you can use big acronyms like SOAP, and XML... I architect multi-platform, mutli-site, highly available, highly integrated systems using modern and legacy systems / protocols, N tier applications, middleware, etc... Don't even start throwing around acronyms with me.

I apologize for not placing a "Visual" in front of my C# reference. I don't write code for a living, but work with people who do every day and often have to explain how things really work. I have been moving bits since the 8080 processor and before, so please don't presume to tell me how computers work.

If you can't tell the difference between a development tool and a compiler I fell sorry for the programmers that worked under you. I'm not dropping acronyms to impress you, I'm mentioning the technologies that are revolutionizing the way distributed systems are being developed. They're not programmed the way you seem to think they are (circa 1995), they're build out of tools and building blocks. It's the difference between building a house out of pre-fab modules, and grabbing an axe and heading into a forest for logs. You make know how a computer works, but you're astonishingly out of touch with what it takes to build large-scale software.

Also, if you don't have to tell your "Studio/Bulder" how to find 3rd party and external libraries, you are either writing very focused "native" applications, or having very little interaction with other diverse systems. But again, my point is made. You have absolutely no visibility to the code you are calling, and have no clue to what extent it is bloated relative to your actual application requirements. How much memory is used, or how many extra branches are taken in that external code in the final binary?

I don't have to tell the development environment how to use external libraries because they're all included in the environment, and when the compiler is run, I'm linked against only the ones that I used. Again, welcome to modern software tools. Other tools we use in this century include code profilers, optimizers, unit testers, etc. We know what's going on in the code, how much memory it's using, what we're calling, etc.

Originally Posted by Dean

How is that different than the bloat that Word, Front page, etc. add to HTML?

Aside from the fact that there's very little bloat (when compared to the massive gains in development efficiency), the difference is that we're not transmitting our binaries over the network. 10k of bloat in a binary that's loaded into RAM once during service startup is a hell of a lot different than 10k of bloat in a file that's downloaded 100,000 times a minute.

Originally Posted by Dean

I work with modern developers who have no clue how their application actually executes on a machine, or how jobs, threads, etc impact the system the code is executing on much less other dependent systems.

You work with crappy developers apparently.

Originally Posted by Dean

Windows is compiled, and so is LINUX, why is one faster for some applications vs. the other. Must be compiler optimization.

What's your point?

Originally Posted by Dean

Word is a terrible tool to create HTML, but an average user like Dave Deborde can click save to web page, and get results they can live with, especially on MS browsers in seconds. Why should they learn DreamWeaver or even Front Page, etc. if they don't need to?

Maybe they shouldn't... but their ignorance to technology and tools isn't an excuse for you developing and attempting to maintain a website with Word and Excel, and arguing that it's a good/acceptable idea in general. You're supposed to know better, you know with all that "multi-platform, mutli-site, highly available, highly integrated systems using modern and legacy systems / protocols, N tier applications, middleware, etc..." architecting you do.