From: Joe Pluta
Walden:
It's much simpler to prevent the back button and think linearly, it's
what we've done for years. It's much more web-like to think differently.
The back button should be able to be programmatically disabled at any
point.
Period. The fact that it isn't is a problem with the interface, not with
the programmer.
And you know, I think it's time to put an end to this particular brand of
silliness. The idea that "web-like" is somehow better than non-web-like is
just one more version of the "new is good" disease that plagues IT on a
regular basis.
While I respect Walden's views on a lot of things, the idea that the back
button must be supported just because it's there is a brilliant example of
the backwards logic that comes from a technology-driven environment. Back
in the day when surfing the web was you the primary use of the browser,
basically jumping from static web page to static page, then keeping a
history of your recent pages made perfect sense.
And in many applications, that back button still makes sense as a good way
to go back to a particular point in a non-linear sequence.
But--and here is the big point--just because you have that button does NOT
mean that non-linear is better than linear, or that anybody who uses linear
programming is somehow inferior.
Walden's comment implies that "web-like" is better than non-web-like, and
that's simply not the case. Some applications need to be linear, and the
fact that the browser won't allow that easily is a weakness in the browser.
It's the same with people who insist that stateless is always better than
stateful, or that web pages should never use tables. This sort of
one-size-fits-all mentality is getting a little too rampant in IT, and in
the words of Barney Fife, it's time to nip it... nip it in the bud.
Joe
midrange.com
