While I was away in Las Vegas, Joel Spolsky did what he does best -- stir the pot -- by writing about How Microsoft lost the API War. At the end of it he describes the problem: Microsoft is losing to web apps in DHTML. Even though he laments the progression to web apps, Joel writes a list of ways that DHTML could be improved and made more useful.

I agreee that DHTML isn't quite there yet but ironically that's one of its strong suits. The fact that in order to remain cross-browser compatible a developer has to use the lowest common denominator of DHTML (which itself is pretty basic) keeps UIs simple. This is why ordinary people prefer web apps like Hotmail to Outlook. They are just simpler.

The disadvantage of DHML is that developers don't realise this. They continue to hack on top of it, making browser-specific apps and JavaScript tricks. Is this OK for intranets? Maybe. The next update of IE could break your app though, and those updates are usually out of your control as a developer. Then you get blamed when the hacks break and you have to figure the problems out and fix them. Is this OK for Internet sites? Definitely not.

An example of stretching DHTML is Google's GMail, which doesn't work in Safari. While it's an impressive web app, it seems overcomplicated to me. There are a lot of eye candyisms and a lot of non-web app features. Ordinary people familiar with web apps will have to take more time to get used to GMail's non familiar features because it's not simple DHTML any more.

GMail has crossed into the grey area between web apps and standard apps. Is this a good thing? I think it's a good gamble on their part. If an established webmail provider like Hotmail tried to make this change, people would bitch. With a brand new service comes a brand new way of doing things. People will look at GMail and say "gee, I didn't know this was possible with web apps". Good or bad, this is the direction it looks like we're heading in.