Is HTML5 really practical?

[Richard Gaskin]

William Prothero wrote:

 > ...I’m wondering whether it might be easier and better to just use
 > the engine as a cgi and do everything in css and html.

Yes.

On the sever, LC makes as good a choice for CGIs as nearly anything else.

On the client there are many options, including browser-native HTML, 
LC's emscripten export to JS/HTML, or an LC native app.

Considering how simple and lightweight web forms are, esp. with CSS3's 
features for field labels and prompts vs having to script all of that by 
hand in LC, for things like that the choice clearly favors simplicity.

Then consider the browser compatibility constraints of LC's current 
export, and that mobile isn't considered supported at all, and the 
choice becomes even clearer.

LC's HTML export can be useful for certain kinds of highly vertical 
solutions, esp. those with little to no direct business competition. 
But as others here have noted, it's not designed for making most kinds 
of web pages.

It's easy to look at desktop and browser apps as being similar, but the 
more you work in both the clearer it becomes that they are radically 
different paradigms.

Native apps, whether made with LC, XCode, VB, or anything else, are 
based on static coordinates, while web elements automatically reflow. 
Right off the bat all aspects of handling layout and changes to layout 
are different at a very fundamental level.

Think about the implications of that for a while, then consider all the 
ways LC is designed to talk to OS APIs, and how browsers are designed to 
insulate the user's OS from what happens within web pages, and the stark 
differences between the two become soberly clear.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com