Bruno Miranda's Notebook

The other day while flying from Chicago, IL to Fort Lauderdale, FL something caught my attention. The plane in which I was in still had tube style televisions which are becoming more scarce by the minute these days.

It got me thinking about the past, and how easy must have been to develop for the tube television as far are resolution/shape was concerned. Every TV set ran at 640x480 with the same aspect ratio. There was only so much you could fit in a frame at any time, and this was a known and respected fact. These guidelines still allow old TV’s to broadcast content that fits nicely in the frame like the old ones in that plane.

Unlike TV’s which have a very tight set of constraints there is the web. When developing a web application you never know where it will end up, who will see it? What resolution/size/shape monitor will it be used in. You also have to consider what type of device will be used to view your site, a handheld, desktop, high-definition television? All these variations pose numerous battles that have to be fought.

Constraint is good. Too many options are seldom good for anything. They hinder more than help.