The new BLINK
The helping-corporates-move-towards-standards thing started for me when I did a longish contract at an insurance company and helped them embrace semantic markup and the separation of style and structure. Anyways, I've been consulting with these large corporates for a while now, and I'm pretty sure I can safely say:
Drag-and-drop is to web2 what the blink tag was to web1
Which really doesn't scan that well or seem that insightful really... How about:
Drag-and-drop is the new <BLINK>
Interesting for you to skip from embracing semantic code and style to drag and drop. Drag and drop itself has very little to do with Web 2.0 at all. Web 2.0 is mainly about behind-the-scenes data transfer. "But drag and drop can be used in behind-the-scenes data transfer applications" I may hear you say. Well you're absolutely right, and in such a case it will hold no similarity to the blink tag, which is annoying and has no real uses. In summary then,
((dragAndDrop != "Web 2.0") &&
(dragAndDrop != document.getElementsByTagName('blink')[i]))
oh and by the way, semantic code does fairly little for html (or xhtml served as html) and is only really needed in xml. Ofcourse, I write semantic because I know it, but there are very few areas where semantic html code differs usefully from non-semantic.
Hi Ali,
Gosh I was wondering how long it would take for someone to pick up on this one:-)
Interesting for you to skip from embracing semantic code and style to drag and drop. Drag and drop itself has very little to do with Web 2.0 at all. Web 2.0 is mainly about behind-the-scenes data transfer.
Yes indeed, and that's my point (well, one of them) I'm currently working with teams of business people who want web2 this and web2 that and for them that means drag and drop everywhere.
I'm trying to get them to talk of RIAs instead (not that 'richness' is inherently linked to drag and drop either but that's another story) and to understand that web2 is about sharing, openness and a mutual enjoyment of our current nirvana (we now all speak the same language and have web services a plently to mashup with)
"But drag and drop can be used in behind-the-scenes data transfer applications" I may hear you say. Well you're absolutely right, and in such a case it will hold no similarity to the blink tag, which is annoying and has no real uses.
Actually, (and I'm being a little bit facecious here) I would argue that in 95% of browser-based user tasks, the reality of drag and drop is that it doesn't provide user benefit (ie that it has no real uses)
In summary then,
((dragAndDrop != "Web 2.0") &&
(dragAndDrop != document.getElementsByTagName('blink')[i]))
I'll stick by my dragAndDrop = blink ;-)
oh and by the way, semantic code does fairly little for html (or xhtml served as html) and is only really needed in xml. Of course, I write semantic because I know it, but there are very few areas where semantic html code differs usefully from non-semantic.
I live in hope of a universally searchable, indexable and exchangable web. If my pages reveal maximum meaning by their xhtml syntax then that makes me feel good:-)