What User Oriented Application should be

[2005-08-18 19:12:39]

From Understanding XML: The Future of SVG and the Web:

The Editable Web. We spend billions of dollars making the web editable in proprietary ways, usually by attempting to do it using server-oriented programming. This has long struck me as being analogous to attempting to knit a sweater by telephoning in each stitch – it's certainly doable, but it's hideously expensive, has very little flexibility, and usually ends up producing an abysmal result. XForms, rich browser-based WYSIWYG editors, graphical state changes encoded in SVG and similar technology will put the editing back on the client (where it belongs) while simultaneously reducing the server load so that it can do what it does best, which is serving content rather than attempting to preserve state across transactions. This also moves editing out of web panes and into the browser itself, which can expose much more extensive functionality.

For me, that's what I would like, that's also where I think things are going, despise the black future of DRM technologies where the industry want to control not only the content you buy but the tools you used and buy. This and the SNAP paradigm, even if it doesn't make the world a better place, let the user be the one who drive the technology instead of the reverse.