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Ian Bicking: "Here’s a general rule I have: I don’t accept anything made by people who hate the web. If you hate the web and you want to improve the web, I don’t want anything to do with you. If you think the web is some kind of implementation detail then I probably don’t care what you are doing. If you still think the web is a fad, then you are just nuts; if all you can think of is reasons why the web is stupid and awkward, and you think it’s some giant step backward (from what?), then you haven’t thought very deeply about what’s happened in the world of technology and why."

Ian's talking about Air and Silverlight. Harsh? Maybe. My complaint is that desktop platforms aren't stable compared to web ones. By the time you're done you're done *deciding* what platform to use, the choice is already legacy. How long will those two be around before something else shiny comes along - two/three years?

Spolsky: "I was shocked to discover that our customers with Windows Server 2003 were having trouble running FogBugz. Then .NET 1.1 was not perfectly backwards compatible with 1.0. And now that the cat was out of the bag, the OS team got into the spirit and decided that instead of adding features to the Windows API, they were going to completely replace it. Instead of Win32, we are told, we should now start getting ready for WinFX: the next generation Windows API. All different. Based on .NET with managed code. XAML. Avalon. Yes, vastly superior to Win32, I admit it. But not an upgrade: a break with the past. Outside developers, who were never particularly happy with the complexity of Windows development, have defected from the Microsoft platform en-masse and are now developing for the web."

To me, desktop app coding has always seemed like a rat race - which is why I generally don't do it (along with a host of other reasons). 

On the other hand, Mozilla Prism looks cool. I always felt what held Mozilla/XUL back as a client side application platform compared to stuff like XAML is that it doesn't have an IDE. If I had to condense every complaint I've heard about Mozilla/XUL into a sentence it would be this - I had to do all it by hand.