The path of least resistance is not SVG. It's a very promising standard, and programs like Inkscape have done wonders with it (and so has KDE), but in browser-land there are simpler solutions that are more widely supported.
So are you trying to say that it's easier to get IE to implement canvas? Or are you trying to say that it's not worth implementing the rest of SVG in the browsers that support it?
Yes, SVG needs to be in tools that target graphics designers, like Illustrator and Inkscape. And I guess, by your logic, those apps need to support canvas too.
Canvas is a simple API for drawing to a space on a web page. That definitely fills some needs. SVG fills some needs too. There is overlap. There's also overlap between plain text and html, nobody's saying we should get rid of one in favour of the other.
As for the size of the spec, that happens as a specification matures. Have you looked at the size of html5? SVG provides a lot of features, there are some common subsets that can be relied on today across numerous platforms. It would be nice if every implementation had all the features, but we can say the same thing about CSS or any number of other standards. Like an alpha channel in PNGs...
You need development tools for designers
True. Same goes for Canvas.
few companies have the manpower/skill to create a dynamic (animation-friendly) design/development environment targeted at web *designers*
This is true - there are some IDEs but they are mostly targeted to SVG in the mobile space. This is looking like it's starting to change though.
Canvas is a much simpler and smaller standard
True. Another way of saying this is "SVG is more powerful"
Browsers that integrate Canvas usually implement it in its entirety"
Nope, see Canvas text API or talk to the Bespin guys.
Ask the same question to the average suicide bomber? Promises of afterlife glory are very persuasive to poor people with nothing else to lose.
I think that is a poor comparison, the former is about someone who dies for a belief (as in his own life), while the latter is someone who is killing for a belief (and taking many other lives with his own).
Funny - I've usually seen it's the geeks who take the trouble to turn on the 'classic' look and feel in Windows and get rid of all the cloying eye-candy. Meanwhile non-technical users just stick with the default.
That's the power of the "default" which is a big deal as well. Most non-technical people don't even realize such options exist or that you do not have to use the default. To be fair though, to Microsoft's credit, often the default is good enough and many don't even care to change it because it will typically allow one to get the job done. Some might say this is NOT the case with some recent changes in Linux desktop environments.
Couldn't agree more. This article would be 2/3rds right if this was 1995. But almost every thing in this article has been corrected for years and years.
I find it odd how people go on and on about how stuff isn't ready for prime time in Linux but I run the bleeding edge of the raw hide branch of Fedora on multiple computers doing different tasks and I never see the kinds of problems these people go on and on about. I run server farms with Redhat and stuff just works. The only time stuff doesn't just work on Linux is when Solaris admins go "Linux is Unix" and then try to run their Linux boxes like they are Solaris and screw them up.
I think it is very possible that with the right hardware someone might have your opinion, and with the wrong hardware someone might have the opinion expressed in the article, which would still imply that problems DO exist.
I am experienced enough to not be affected by many of those issues, but it is very obvious to me that XP seriously outperforms my Fedora.
And as far as I understand, Redhat is Server not Desktop, which is not really the points of the article.
The viewer uses Canvas, which is pretty cool, but... if you're doing scaling and panning through a document and are okay with using new technologies then I wonder why they didn't build parts of it with SVG (since that's a way to do zooming & panning pretty naturally).
I don't have much experience with canvas yet, anyone have input?
I wouldn't call PDF an open format. It's well-documented, yes, but is controlled by Adobe.
Sorry if it sounds pedantic but they have made changes to the format over the years that harm preservation of data, like mechanisms for DRM and certain uses of a document through their reader.
I've used CakePHP (1.2 beta) and Drupal (4,5 and 6) but Drupal more recently. I like both very much. If I were building a site with the features you describe I'd go with Drupal. Either way you've got a lot of learning ahead of you but at least with Drupal, if you get it right, you'll have the benefit of piles of modules that are already tested and other people who are familiar with them. CakePHP can get you just as far but in my experience you're doing a deeper pile of custom code.
There are at least a couple of popular shopping carts for Drupal. I'm building a simple Ubercart site.
The other popular contrib modules you're almost sure to run in to are Views and CCK. You'll want to get some screencasts or podcasts to get familiar with those (Lullabot does some good ones - they're also the authors of this book).
I've been doing a lot with Views lately and a little with CCK. There's a pile of stuff you can do with very little custom code in the right places. It just takes a lot of effort to learn what works well together.
"It's the best thing since professional golfers on 'ludes." -- Rick Obidiah
