

Mockingbird, Cappuccino, and what really matters - boucher
http://www.alertdebugging.com/2009/11/04/mockingbird-cappuccino-and-what-really-matters/

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milestinsley
I couldn't agree more with Francisco's comments - it's not native controls
that users want, it's controls that _feel_ "native". As someone who used to
work extensively on an enterprise app in Flash, I can say first hand that
users just _expect_ certain behavior from the UI controls.

I have had to implement countless hacks to circumvent the (many) limitations
of Flash; like getting the mouse scroll wheel to work in a scroll view. Once
users realize the control conforms to certain usability and accessibility
expectations, they are far more appreciative of the app design.

Cappuccino provides a perfect compromise, with controls that look consistent
across platforms, but behave predictably, like so-called native controls.

~~~
gstar
I agree also. Francisco clearly has a vested interest in this opinion, and
like you say he's absolutely right about implementation making the difference.

I have given a Cappuccino app to people to use, and they didn't even realise
there was a difference from the native controls (after the widgets rendered -
which DID throw them).

Even though I fundamentally agree that re-implementing UIs from scratch is not
optimal, Cappuccino had a valid reason for doing so, and its implementation
doesn't harm usability.

~~~
milestinsley
With the current 'jake' branch and its' imminent merging into master, the
framework resources are sprited meaning they all load in one http request
(rather than many). This eliminates the fragmented loading of the UI, which, I
agree, can throw people at first!

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mcav
It really comes down to whether you view HTML/Javascript as source code or
object code.

If HTML&JS is source code, you ought to keep it clean and minimal. You're
betting that browsers will evolve to include desktop widgets and other aspects
of the "native" experience in HTML tags and Javascript APIs.

If HTML&JS is object code, you're rooting for abstractions over HTML and
Javascript, so that HTML/JS becomes assembly language.

I don't mind the extra abstraction. But it's unfortunate that we're adding _so
many_ layers of abstraction over a system that wasn't really designed to be
used that way.

~~~
amadiver
I'm curious as to why you feel it's unfortunate to add so many layers of
abstraction over the system. Besides the "All abstractions are leaky
abstractions" argument, is there any other reason you feel like this is a bad
thing? Or is it ruffling your engineering feathers?

~~~
mcav
Primarily because it's an inefficient abstraction.

Yeah, Moore's Law and all that. But still.

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gcv
Good post, but I wish it addressed the accessibility argument a bit more
thoroughly. Although in fairness, it does not seem that Mockingbird is
terribly useful for visually-disabled users in any case.

~~~
percept
I've been tempted to use (the impressive) Cappuccino for a couple of apps but
based on its lack of keyboard tab focus and performance on slower systems I
decided against using it. I like to build simple, accessible apps.

Somebody--Sofa I think--was using it for back-end administration while
presenting a more typical interface to public users, and that may be a better
approach.

~~~
asnyder
Perhaps you should check out NOLOH, <http://www.noloh.com>. It's similar to
Cappuccino in some ways, yet very different in others. For instance, NOLOH is
lightweight and on-demand. It also fails gracefully when JS is disabled in
most cases, and is faster overall (this is based on our internal testing. Not
trying to start a war). Notice how noloh.com loads instantly without any
loading, or delay.

NOLOH also works with tab focus, and is more accessibility friendly. You can
read more about our accessibility features at <https://www.noloh.com/#/faqs/>.
We'll be posting major updates to HN in the next week or two, we last posted
around a year ago, in case you haven't heard of us.

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gps408
I don't understand why qooxdoo <http://qooxdoo.org/> doesn't get more
attention. It's not as pretty as cappuccino, sure, but it seems a very nice
set of tools.

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koenbok
What I find strange is that people have a tendency to compare Cappuccino to
flash, way more then other web frameworks, and what that means.

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scotth
What does command+clicking in the track do? It works the same way as just
clicking for me, unless I'm missing something.

~~~
stevenbedrick
I think the author meant "option+clicking", which causes the scrollbar to jump
to the precise location of the click (rather than a simple page-up/page-down,
which is what it usually does on click).

