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This question has a discussion of progressive enhancement. My question is about the alternative type of web application. If you have a web app in which the UI is constructed almost entirely in Javascript, won't gracefully degrade, has a desktop feel, etc., what is that kind of web application called?

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Mike Sickler
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  • Good question. Plenty of perfectly fine apps out there that don't do this, but could benefit from an actual descriptive term that does them justice in their own way rather than trashing them just because they do things differently. – Rahul Jul 15 '09 at 14:18
  • Right. Look at Google Reader. It doesn't work without Javascript, yet it's an excellent application. – Mike Sickler Jul 15 '09 at 14:52
  • Web 2.0 app to me implies a modern browser with JS engine –  Jul 15 '09 at 15:19
  • Is StackOverflow a Web 2.0 app? If so, then Web 2.0 applies to both progressive enhancement apps (like StackOverflow), and 'the other kind', like Google Reader. – Mike Sickler Jul 15 '09 at 15:21
  • I guess. In that case unless you have Web 2.0 Javascript app then I dont think there is a term. Too many people read about progress enhancement and think in terms of JS but dont take the time to align other factors as well, there's no point having a site that works with javascript off with non-semenatic HTML div hell and css bordering on v3. –  Jul 15 '09 at 15:25
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    One of the answers mentioned "fat client". This is also known as "thick client". (Pointing it out for the sake of completeness.) – antinome Jul 11 '12 at 00:12

7 Answers7

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Do you mean this type or the opposite of this type:

"Rich Internet Application" where you could have an application that runs on for example AIR.

JB King
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  • RIA seems a bit broad, in the sense that it includes Flex/Silverlight apps. I'm talking specifically about the choice a web developer can make. You can either have a progressive-enhancement, unobtrusive Javascript approach, or a Javascript-centric, widget-oriented approach. – Mike Sickler Jul 15 '09 at 14:51
  • Its the best term I've heard for this kind of app yet, but it's kind of problematic because it's hijacked by the PR folks to mean many, many different things. – Joachim Sauer Jul 15 '09 at 15:19
  • I agree that 'Rich Internet Application' is a little overloaded with PR, and it might be the best term to describe these types of apps, even if they don't require a plugin. After all, whether it's Flex, Silverlight, or ExtJS, they all face the same challenges, namely browser back button/refresh handling, accessibility, and deep linking – Mike Sickler Jul 15 '09 at 15:42
  • As we've moved away from Flash, Adobe AIR, and other non-web technologies, the term "RIA" should refer more and more to [Rich JavaScript Applications](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Internet_application). – Dan Dascalescu Jan 21 '16 at 00:03
  • @DanDascalescu, is that we the entire universe or just your company? If the latter, my answer may still make sense for the few that do use AIR which is given as an example from an answer 5.5 years ago. – JB King Jan 21 '16 at 00:19
  • @JBKing: the fact that an answer is old doesn't mean it shouldn't be improved. Not sure what the problem is? I've upvoted this answer in fact. As for [my company](http://stackoverflow.com/users/1269037/dan-dascalescu?tab=profile), that's a pretty big chunk of the web universe, but that's, again, irrelevant. Think of "we" as in "web developers". – Dan Dascalescu Jan 21 '16 at 02:59
  • @DanDascalescu, I see it as claiming that "RJA" should be the term instead of "RIA" which would be new to me and thus I'd want to see where is that used as I'm not seeing it in my circles. I have seen JS frameworks get more into mobile spaces and there was Windows allowing for native applications to use JS but I see this going towards the Internet of Things rather than replacing the middle letter in the acronym. – JB King Jan 21 '16 at 16:21
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Monolithic?

Diodeus - James MacFarlane
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Well, really the opposite of "progressive enhancement" is "graceful degradation", even though they basically achieve the same thing.

Progressive enhancement means you start off with plain old HTML for older browsers, then enhance it in stages, with cross-browser CSS, additional CSS (e.g. CSS3 styles), Javascript and AJAX.
Graceful degradation means you rush headlong into creating a Rich Internet Experience, then tack on alternatives for people without Javascript/CSS.

Anyway to answer your question, I'd probably call it "ungraceful degradation". Alternatives:

  • Badly designed
  • Uncrawlable (from search engine perspective)
  • Inaccessible (credit: Chuck)
DisgruntledGoat
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    Why would you want to crawl an application? – Joeri Sebrechts Jul 15 '09 at 15:57
  • For the same reason you'd crawl a web site: to find information relevant to a user's search query. If SO was built entirely in Javascript/AJAX then it would be basically uncrawlable. That's probably a bad example but there are surely several "web applications" that could benefit from being crawlable/indexable. – DisgruntledGoat Jul 17 '09 at 12:22
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to me, what you describe seems to be a JavaScript based fat client ... i see nothing wrong in that ...

the thing is, that everyone forgets is that HTML means hypertext markup language ... it is a format for describing documents and was never designed to capture the functionality that some HTML-based apps offer nowadays ...

the answer "RIA" seems the best to me ... of course that includes flash and silverlight ... but your choice of HTML+JS is completely arbitrary in this case, because you manipulate the HTML DocumentObjectModel with JavaScript as a flash developer would manipulate the flash DisplayObjectModel with ActionScript ...

  1. there are simply web apps, that are document and form based ... they have a CRUD infrastructure for some type of data, that is accessed in a RESTful, or at least RESTish way ... this type of apps can employ progressive enhancement, using HTML to capture its semantics and plain HTTP for all client<->server communication... i'd tend to simply call this kind of web app a web site ... having a bit of funky AJAX won't change that really ... i mean, from a simple guest book, to a forum, to stackoverflow, the basic idea never changes ... and a guest book does not make a web application, does it?
  2. there are web apps, where the state is fully maintained by a much richer client, because these apps do a lot of granular data manipulation, as opposed to the document based CRUD web apps, and to me, this is the type of web application actually deserving the name, but i'd call them RIAs, to emphasize the difference ... in some cases this solution is faster, more lightweight, scalable, usable, easier and faster to develop/maintain/extend, and simply more natural ... this choice is often based on the type of data they deal with, as well as the functionality exposed for manipulating that data ... for example, if you were to implement a game like tetris, progressive enhancement wouldn't be the way to go ... instead, in order to create such apps, willful misuse of HTML is required ... so what? :-D

so, yeah, RIA is the right word, i'd say ... and opposed to others, i think first of all, it is a great, easy and powerful way of deploying functionality ... i mean i get the whole "inaccessible" and "incrawlable" thing ... but the latter is often pointless, and the first one is a problem you can't address properly, unless for example screen readers read whatever is in the DOM, instead of spitting out the original page ... but that's the problem you face with "real", i.e. desktop like, apps ...

greetz

back2dos

back2dos
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Inaccessible.

Chuck
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It just doesn't degrade well.

I'm not sure I'd categorise applications as progessively enhanced, because that inferrs that there is some sort of baseline. How far back should an app degrade before it's considered as 'progressively enhanced'?

At a push, I'd say the app is dependant on certain features of the browser - maybe it is 'edge dependant' or 'modern browser only'?

Codebeef
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UI is constructed almost entirely in Javascript, won't gracefully degrade

Arrogant. Presumptive. Illegal (depending on specifics of application and jurisdiction).

AakashM
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