RE: Netscape the Big Win

[tcmay@sensemedia.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 3:18 PM 7/20/95, Pat Farrell wrote:

>The current trend is to bundle all types of functionality into huge
>monolithic programs. Add mail to netscape, add encryption, add ...
>
>Yet most of the computers people use are multi-windows, and soon most
>will even be multi-tasking.
>
>Why are all-in-one programs so preferable to using the windowing
>capabilities that are built into every X-window, Mac or Windows system?
>
>Why not use the best mail client, another best webcrawler, and yet another
>news reader?

Speaking for myself, consistency of user interface.

To that extent, Netscape (or Lotus Notes, in a different context) becomes
the "operating environment" for the user, the place where he does his work.


The News reader in Netscape 1.1N is as good as the main "separate" news
reader, NewsWatcher, for the Macintosh, and has some added benefits. For
example, URLs in News postings automatically show up as clickable items,
which can be jumped to immediately. (Other News programs _could_ do this,
and maybe some of them do, but not on the Macintosh, at this moment.)


>Microsoft has been preaching the use of OLE and component programs as its
>development vision for 2+ years, Macs have been popular for ten years,
>why is the trend still towards adding every possible bell and whistle
>to single programs?

I don't know why "componentware" has not taken off. But it hasn't. OpenDoc
and OLE 2 are coming, but slowly.

Big programs tend to grow because they can increase market share by adding
capabilities, by pulling in more customers. We might prefer a world of
smaller apps, with componentware pieces, but it rarely happens.

And I'm not going to use half a dozen small programs, each doing slightly
different things and having different commands, when one will do nicely.

(I could list other pluses and minuses, a la my outline FAQ, but here's
just one more important item: cross-compatibility. Namely, with N smaller
programs in use, of varying versions, incompatibilities and even crashes
can result all too often ("We have discovered that MailMuncher 2.12 does
not work with NewsNabber 1.1."). At lest with something like Netscape, a
certain amound of cross-operability is likely, for various reasons.)

In any case, while I respect the views Pat is expressing, about
componentware and "small is better" approaches, the market is voting with
its feet for apps like Netscape, which are becoming the main programs folks
will use for communication, News reading, and Web surfing.

>With components, it wouldn't be hard to have a universal
>Encryption/Signature module. It would get arround any propriatary
>restriction that vendors may or may not try to enforce ("can Netscape be
>extended or not" becomes moot).

So go ahead and do it! I've been waiting for many years for such things.

To state an obvious non-crypto use of such "modules," why do all major word
processing and page layout apps have their own "dictionaries"? Why do I
have to train the dictionaries of Word, Nisus, FrameMaker, MORE, etc.? That
there have not been "dictionary modules," for many and sundry reasons, is
telling. (Before anyone mentions it, one can on the Mac use things like
"Thunder" instead of the local dictionaries...this is not the same as a
module usable by all programs, but instead is a user choice to bypass the
local dictionaries. We could quibble for hours about whether this is in
fact a universal module or not.

--Tim May

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