What's The Greatest Web Software Ever? 178
An anonymous reader writes "What's The Greatest Web Software Ever Written?, Charlie Babcock of InformationWeek asks, in his follow up to last year's widely read list of greatest software period. The winner then was BSD 4.3. The new Top 12 list is a little funky in that it doesn't distinguish between apps, sites, and controls — XMLHttpRequest object set — is one of the winners. It includes many of the usual suspects, like Digg and AIM, along with some unexpected winners. (like World of Warcraft) The number one choice however, Apache server, is arguably correct."
Ever ever? (Score:5, Insightful)
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So thank you Windows, we have been raped by your presence and w
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Windows 95 was certainly built with the Internet in mind. They didn't need AOL links to educate people about its existence.
Re:Ever ever? (Score:5, Funny)
The greatest software in the world has indeed been written, and the importance of this breakthrough cannot be overestimated [slashdot.org].
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And how do you know for certain? Maybe there will never be any greater software written than de greatest software that has been written until this moment.
Skip the Ads, here's the picks (Score:5, Informative)
12. AOL Instant Messenger
11. Digg
10. Hotmail
9. World Of Warcraft
8. Wikipedia
7. XMLHttpRequest object set
6. Amazon.com
5. eBay
4. The Well
3. Craigslist
2. AltaVista
1. Apache
*If you want to say thank you, mod up -- and thank YOU.
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if (in_array($greatest_software, $web)) {
greatestSoftware = Google;
echo "Period.";
}
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Is this guy a "real" journalist? (Score:4, Insightful)
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by having a public diary and parroting the thoughts and ideas of others.
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But there are also those who practice what might be described as proper journalism:
investigative reporting, trying to explain "complicated" things to the hoi polloi...
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Ahem ... (Score:2)
If you will read the article a little slower, you will find the following paragraph at the end of Page 1.
'If we're looking for great Web software, why not start with Mosaic? It qualifies as a brilliant synthesis of what went before, bringing new utility to the millions of users coming onto the Web in 1993. But, alas, Mosaic was No. 6 on my list of greatest software ever written; no sense repeating myself. '
You may not agree with his reasoning, but he cle
WoW was robbed (Score:4, Funny)
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Seems reasonable to include WOW if he uses hotmail outlook on the first page (at least in a picture), I think he's taking it more as "What's the greatest software to make use of the web ever?" rather than "What's the greatest software that runs on a web page ever?"
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I think the first IM system was IRC...
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free advert for Vista .. (Score:2)
Re:free advert for Vista .. (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks again for mentioning Vista. Now I'm off to sit on my balcony with a cold beer and enjoy the Vista.
Yours etc
Vista Marketing Team
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Cancel / Allow
My List (Score:5, Interesting)
2 - Routed - the router daemon that, in some shape, form or fashion, runs probably 90% of the internet. Without routers to move the traffic, the rest of it just a moot point
3 - Netscape 1.0 - The idea of a GUI browser is fundamental to how we experience the web today. Without that, who needs dynamic objects like Flash since you wouldn't be able to see them.
4 - Flash - The idea that you could put moving pictures, sound, and video on a web page is a pretty fundamental one that gets largely over looked.
5 - Shockwave - The idea that could put games and other interactive media on a web page is another pretty fundamental idea that gets largely overlooked.
6 - CSS - Stylesheets - what a blessing to every web master everywhere. Praise the Lord and pass the wine.
I'm kinda surprised that more of my list didn't make it. Oh well......
2 cents,
Queen B.
Re:My List (Score:5, Insightful)
Pass the Macromedia^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Adobe kool-aid, wouldya?
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Say what you will about flash, but a lot of what it's done has revolutionized the web. (Not to mention that it was the first streaming media platform to be widely adopted because it "just works")
All that being said, as a Mac user, I have a firey disdain for the (grossly unoptimized and
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Though I supposed they deserve credit for being so doggedly cross-platform and cross-browser. YouTube succeeded thanks to Flash, because they were not beholden to Microsoft or to Real or to Apple.
gutter cleavage (Score:2)
The design of the human eye with aggressive edge and motions detectors in the periphery makes it difficult to concentrate on the fovial cone required to read, comprehend, and assimilate textual content while any Flash ad is "flashing" on the margins of the screen cleavage and lucre. I've had Flash disabled on my system since the mid-nineties. Easiest recapture of ten IQ points ever. Unfortunately, even with Flash disabled I still can't function at my peak in the early evening after drinking half a bottle
Re:My List (Score:5, Insightful)
So why Netscape 1.0? Why not either Mosaic (earlier) or Firefox (better)?
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Re:My List (Score:4, Insightful)
Flash is, for my 2 cents, The Worst web app out there. It breaks usability - it's totally client side and screw the user. It's resource hogging and 98% of the time it's being used where it need never be - it's only the other 2% that's valid legitimate use.
Shockwave is much the same - although mercifully less used and abused than Flash.
Please understand that, in all seriousness, I value Flashblock / Firefox as the singular most valuable software combination currently available on Earth. I love those Flashblock guys, they gave me the web back.
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The fact that Firefox 1) allows extensions and 2) has such an awesome community of extension developers, makes it the swiss army knife of the web.
Yes, software like Apache and IIS and PHP and MySQL help make the web. But Firefox allows it be browsed and developed.
Anyone can appreciate the browsing aspect by using Firefox with <<insert extension>>
But the angle I am coming from is from that of a web developer. Without Firebug and the Tidy HTM
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I know you were joking and all, but here are mine: Tidy Validator, Firebug, Scrapbook, lori (life of request info) (all of these plus stumbleupon at home).
Re:My List (Score:5, Informative)
You are kidding right? You don't actually think that routed runs anything major do you? For starters, unix systems are not routers, they can be used as such, I use one at home. But for a backbone connection with millions of packets per second, they are a poor choice. They cannot keep up with a good cisco or foundry router.
Next, routed implements RIP, an interior routing protocol, for use within one AS, you _never_ use RIP for external routes to other networks, that is where BGP comes into play. Might I also mention that RIP is an ancient interior routing protocol, with serious limitations that make it a poor choice for all but the simplest networks. Most modern networks run on OSPF for internal routing, RIP is just pathetic.
I don't know anyone who still uses routed for anything serious, and certainly not the 90% figure you made up. I doubt it accounts for 1% of 1% of all routed traffic. It is just an old bat that has fallen by the wayside. Even networks that still use RIP for a segment or all of their interior routing use a better implementation of RIP than the one in routed.
If you want to use a UNIX system for a router, I suggest you look into OpenBSD's OpenOSPF and OpenBGP.
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The early Juniper routers were basically a BSD box running gated with some custom code added in. They ran BGP, OSPF, and all major routing protocols.
I don't think there were enough of these boxes to constitute a major application for the Internet, though. The majority of the Internet is routed by Cisco and Foundry devices.
Perhaps the right answer here would be that Cisco IOS is one of the most important Internet applications, ever.
Apache: bloatware at its finest (Score:2)
Apache - still one of the most popular web servers out there. One of the most flexible and adaptable. It just rocks.
"Flexible" and "adaptable" are far too polite ways of saying what it really is: complex. Apache, despite being very elderly, isn't mature at all. Its configuration file is haphazard, full of nuances and inconsistencies; for years, most apache installations had "apache.conf" and "httpd.conf", and damned if I ever knew what directives belong where. It's the only software I know of where yo
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The main reason why I actually like Apache is because it is well documented, you can actually look at the official docs and figure out how to do something (although there are still a few things that might not make sense at first). There are lots of other apps out there that have config files that make no sense without proper docs and that
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The Java Platform (Score:4)
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CPAN?
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With Java, all the basic libraries are already there. Sure, there are 3rd-party jars but the CLASSPATH mechanism is sooooo simple. I am still surprised that other languages like
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Sure, take your pick:
I'm sure there's others...
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The Jython Project [jython.org]
Anything with a spellchecker! (Score:3, Insightful)
"Web" and "Internet" aren't the same thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Amusingly, his screenshot of "Hotmail" runs into the exact same problem. He's apparently decided to take a screenshot of someone using Microsoft Outlook to log into Hotmail - not a web browser. While you can obviously use Hotmail with a web browser, and I suspect the majority of people do, that screenshot is particularly badly chosen.
Bad, bad writer.
Google Maps gets my vote (Score:5, Insightful)
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Google Maps is handy as a quick reference, but as a mapping application it's not the best. It's designed as a road map, and misses out a lot of important information for walkers, cyclists and horse riders.
MultiMap [multimap.com] does a bit better as it uses Ordnance Survey [ordnancesurvey.co.uk] maps at certain scales, but I ended up going back to paper OS maps because MM is soooo slow, and you can take a paper map with you.
Credit to Google though, they modified the route planning algorithms fairly recently (a few weeks ago I think). It
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I wouldn't be surprised. Directions from Edinburgh to my house involve me committing suicide a quarter of a mile from home.
Duke Nukem Forever (Score:3, Funny)
Well, it has to be to me anyhow... ever since my copy of BLAZEMONGER [blazemonger.com] actually self destructed (taking my Amiga with it) because I *thought* about making a backup copy of it in case it got worn out.
That's copy protection! At least I didn't have to call their customer support.
TTFN
original CERN client and server, NCSA Mosaic (Score:2)
Digg, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, after the whole HD-DVD key revolt, I decided Digg was just far too childish to bother with anymore. Sure, at one point Digg was probably very good, but after 1st May 2007, it died (for me anyway).
As with every piece of software, it'd be perfect if it wasn't for the users.
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That's the wrong attitude to take when considering software. The user is a fundamental part of the software. Without considering your audience, you cannot write good software. If Digg doesn't match its audience, which it apparently can't when taken to the extreme, then it is not good software. A lot of people criticize Windows but you have to give them credit for who they target as their audience. Likewise for Linux. It's gr
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Autocad is clearly the most important web software (Score:5, Funny)
Synergy2 (Score:2, Insightful)
My proposition (Score:2)
Less click, more read (Score:2, Informative)
How pointlessly ambiguous. (Score:2)
Lists of things like this need to be more categorised to be of any real use.
Napster, Baby, Napster! (Score:5, Insightful)
ZIPPY! (Score:2)
My vote for truly the best web software ever was the Zippy Filter [archive.org]. It's the only thing that made most of the web bearable and it is sorely missed. As one of the comments suggested, "This is almost certainly the finest thing I have seen on the Web. When you figure out how to apply this filter to the rest of the universe, don't tell me about it. Just do it."
What? Blue Screen of Death won an award? (Score:2)
Mosaic! (Score:2, Informative)
Google Spreadsheets (Score:3, Insightful)
google.com? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, hello! (Score:2, Insightful)
Social Networking sites may be the talk of the town, but from a developers perspective (behind the scene) I would have to say SourceForge is one of the best things that happened!
Who said who to what now? (Score:3, Funny)
Of course, he means 4.3BSD.
[Now get offa my lawn youngster!]
Porn! (Score:2)
OpenSSH (Score:2)
Where are the Karma Whores? (Score:2)
Dear illiterate Slashdot editors (Score:2)
Please learn to use an em dash [wikipedia.org]. Hint: it does not go between the subject and the verb of a clause.
I'm not trying to be a grammar nazi, but you, the Slashdot editors, aren't trying either. You're not trying in the sense that you aren't making an effort. You are editors of a publication, and you don't do any editing. You ought to learn the English language if only to maintain your own dignity, since it is your job.
The web sucks! (Score:2)
Reasons for why the web is terrible (and thus no web apps can be contenders for "the best apps ever"):
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And then there are the pages people make using it.
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PHP is... excessively convenient, but it is not Great. Its soul is an abominable junk-heap filled with the most disgusting assortment of rubbish imaginable, tangled up in mangled-up knots.
And then there are the pages people make using it.
Clearly spoken by someone with an unbiased opinion that has been carefully thought out with a level-head..
I have pretty extensive experience with PHP5/Zend Engine 2 (work and my current pet project [phpdiplomacy.net]), and if it is a "disgusting assortment of rubbish" it sure as hell doesn't show it.
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Re:PHP all the way. (Score:5, Informative)
The LAMP stack was simply the *only* way to develop web apps and definitely didn't become popular as an alternative to ASP. Rather, ASP was developed as an alternative to the Apache stack.
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I don't think that AOL encouraged people to get on the web so much as they marketed their way onto people's computers. One could make a similar argument that Windows is what made personal computing take off, but it didn't; it just happened to win because of (dubious) busine
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Why hasn't Slashdot banned the twelve-year-olds from commenting yet? Shouldn't Slashdot have a fucking COPPA mechanism?
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