I think DHH has accomplished enough to definitively fall into the ‘not-idiot’ category. Or, if he is an idiot, I could use some more idiocy in my life.

That said, I think his thinking on this matter is so bad it’s not even wrong (I love that quote).

Anyway, maybe I’m a niche guy, but hybrid web/desktop applications are my holy grail.

I am not a salesman (worse- mgmt consultant!), but I do fly a lot (more than I’d like, that’s for sure) and do a lot or work on planes! Applications that are online-only are a real problem. For example, for my personal email I use Gmail, but I use Thunderbird and POP as my offline backup- works fine, but it’s not exactly an elegant solution.

Web applications are great because it makes things like collaboration a lot easier, and it makes deployment and upgrades a lot quicker. But web applications have usability issues; latency is just the start (and it’s still a big one for most users!). Desktop applications have largely orthogonal strengths and weaknesses, and thus are largely complementary.

Here’s an example- I have a sweet web application (let’s pretend) that my corporate clients with their locked-down desktops can access. Totally sweet. But their use of the site is fairly low-bandwidth and not latency-constrained; they are mainly viewing and commenting on the results of all sorts of backend data analyses.

But us working behind the scenes need a lot more responsive interface to get those analyses fed and running. Simply put, our requirements exceed what is currently available via a web application, and what will be available for the foreseeable future. Bottom line: We need a local application.

And it sure would be nice to have a common platform for all of this…

Sure, synching has been solved before (I shudder to say this, but Outlook is even pretty good in this department), but not with the flexibility and low entry cost of RoR. If I’m GM, maybe I stick with Notes, but us small shops sure like open standards & open source.

Speaking of which, it’d be great if you could figure out a way to profit from making Slingshot open source…

Me? I’d love to have access to my web stuff while on a plane. (And on a train! And in a tree! And in a car! Sam! Let me be!)

When the sales staff are on the road, they don’t have access to wifi most of the time and network access may or may not be there given the client size etc. If they had to login to get the most latest inventory figures or orders data, the delays could be costly and affect the business..

Similarly, most consultants need to enter time data locally and then upload it later on. The level of detail and itemization that some consulting companies use is quite intricate. Think for example a law firm or an accounting firm. The consultant can charge up to multiples of hundreds of dollars an hour and the clients expect a detailed breakdown of their activities. Meanwhile, the head-office wants latest figures compiled every night so they can do their revenue forecasts on almost a daily basis. This requires data being uploaded to the central servers.

The potential number of consultants offsite for large organizations can easily reach into tens of thousands. So it is not a couple of web developers entering their daily time (if we were to continue the simplistic line of thought of only needing to have online access when you’re on a plane for example)

Your application will give the best of both worlds to people with needs such as these, i.e., access through the web whenever possible and offline access to critical data when needed.

Access on the planes is really a red herring, there is real need out there for hybrid access. So kudos to you, keep on trukin’ , and you have a bright future ahead of you.

In fact his post realy makes sense in parts with an additional tidbit which David only revealed in the comments which was, that their target Market is American Office Workers only. That in mind explains why he is simply ignoring the majority of underconnected countries on this planet. It does not explain however, why he would not want to see all the other benefits of an offline WebApp.

Simple Example: try to upload a 250MB File via HTTP. It will block your whole web-app to the everage user (which didn’t open an additional browser session prior to the upload) for quite some time. Now with an offline app, you drag and drop the file and forget about it while the upload will happen behind the curtains. Then, as you said there’s all kinds of integration possibilities…

Personally I have a few app ideas that need exactly this to be successful. So I’m anxiously awaiting a release.

To everybody getting all riled up about DHH, have you been around the Rails community for long? DHH’s “style” is a little abrasive, but it’s also a significant reason why everybody in the world has heard of Ruby on Rails now. Take it as a marketing tactic and not an attack.

But about interaction. I would love to use a ‘markdown’-like way of typing in a textarea that instantly transfers things to styled text, essentially like Word does.

You’re kidding, right? You told people that they were wrong for having offline requirements, that their requirements didn’t matter, and that anybody who couldn’t get connected was in a “dark hole”. And to top it all off, you swore at them while doing it.

If you seriously didn’t guess that would offend people, then you truly do deserve to be called an idiot. But truth be told, I think you did expect this reaction because you couldn’t have been more inflammatory if you’d tried. So idiot or troll; either causes any respect I had for you to plummet.