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Subject:Re: Web Server & Documents From:David Blyth <dblyth -at- QUALCOMM -dot- COM> Date:Sat, 5 Apr 1997 10:21:09 -0800
Hi all;
Susan G. commented... (Hi Susan!)
>First, if you're delivering the files to the customer for use on a local
>hard disk or company intranet, you don't know their how there hard drives
>are formatted. If they've optimized their drives for large files, a
>couple of hundred HTML pages could gobble disk space like the monster
>that ate Chicago. You can make a lot of enemies this way.
And the same number of regular help files won't gobble disk space? I'm
not sure I understand here. You never download an entire HTML document,
so your second objection seems more valid.
>Second, if you're delivering the files to your web site for online access,
>you have that horrendous lag time between the request for a new page and
>its actual appearance.
I agree. HTML help files do work better on a local Intranet.
On the other hand Intranets are large and rapidly expanding market.
A lot of big companies (IBM, for example) develop and document full-scale
Java applications completely behind a firewall. Intranets (and Java)
aren't a toy for tomorrow. I'm on an Intranet now.
>Making HTML pages a little longer than help pages seems like the
>appropriate compromise.
Why? The application and the document are both chunked.
You don't download an application then download an HTML
help file separately. You download a single page that
contains _both_ the application _and_ the document.
David (The Man) Blyth
Technical Writer
QUALCOMM - Standard disclaimers apply.
Blodo Poa Maximus
-----------------
PS. Only the "Maximus" is Latin
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