Think twice

Somebody once said something like (sorry I couldn't find who),

"Whenerver somebody says 'it can't be done', they are usually interrupted by somebody who is already doing it"

This phrase has stuck in my mind every time I say NO (If you are following me on Twitter, don't worry, I'm not going to twiter about it every day ;).

Why all this? well, I feel that the Javascript community is constantly interrupting the development of RIA applications saying: "hey, here you are, it's the same sample up and running using Javascript."

And lately they've added a new word at the end of the phrase: "here you are, it's the same sample up and running FAST."

So far, this history has been full of interruptions from Javascript in the RIA world

· Javascript was not developed for this use --> AJAX applications work everywhere

· Javascript + DOM is a bad programming practice --> many easy to use frameworks, such as jQuery wicht hides DOM management

· Too many bad controls --> many high quality controls based on Javascript frameworks.

· Too slow --> High performance Javascript engines

· Graphics? --> Canvas HTML5

I think Javascript technologies will continue to grow; and technologies like Silverlight, AIR and JavaFX wich will also continue to grow, are now useful for many scenarios.

I could say "use AIR or Silverlight if you wanna create cool animations, graphics, performance, etc" but I'm not going to say it because these guys will probably interrupt me:

http://blog.thejit.org/javascript-information-visualization-toolkit-jit/

http://www.nihilogic.dk/labs/canvas3d/

http://www.ajaxrain.com

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/chrome-experiments-are-here.html

In our DTM (Development Team Meeting), I said that: "It's very difficult to find a good spreadsheet control to be integrated in our applications for use directly over a blob in the database"

Well.... Zoho, Genexus, and Gonzalo reminded me about this phrase again and did it

So, in software development I recommend you remember this:

think twice before saying "can't be done"

By the way, if you are a soccer fan of Nacional you know it is very difficult to catch up with Peñarol, but I'm not saying it's impossible ;) Take a look at this spreadsheet