Can Google add a third competent browser to this list?  Answer: Not if it thinks this beta is close to being ready for Prime time.

First impressions:

• Fast download (not a mega file like IE8 is suppose to be. (No I am not interested in IE8 until it is released. Too many MS betas crash machines.))
• Fast rendering first pages.
• Handle some applications that are VERY Javascript heavy that can bring IE or Firefox to a crawl. It did well with a real live application that I wrote that lives inside a firewall.

Second Impressions:

• Had the same bug as Safari for passing information to a Flash application for my vegetable garden software
• During the install process it seemed to have created a bug where I couldn’t resize ANY application window until I rebooted. (That was strange, but hard to confirm 100% that is was Chrome that did it.)
• A page that correctly dynamically adds a table ROW in IE and Firefox didn’t work right. It added a new COLUMN and a new ROW to the middle of the table. Again, this has been working with IE6, IE7 and multiple versions of Firefox. (never tested with Safari - remember that I consider the world to be a two horse race for browsers)
• Finally a page that has worked on ALL browsers it was ever tested with displayed RAW HTML instead of the page layout. At first I thought I accidently clicked on view source, but I double checked and Google’s Chrome displayed HTML as HTML code. This has been tested with IE, Firefox, Safari and others as it is an appliation that lives outside a firewall on the web.
• Favicons don’t seem to work. Kind of sad it has a problem with them. Not a show stopper, but embarrasing for modern browsers

I have had Chrome only since 11:50 am September 2, 2008 and even with an hour meeting and an hour lunch I found all these problems before 3pm.

Good luck Google, you have your work cut out for you!!!

I have written an entire RIA application in AS2 and then re-written the same application in AS3, so I have seen the good the bad and ugly of both.
When I look at style and performance, I am not interested in getting into benchmarking the two against each other. There are enough differences in my code and dependancies on the web fetches to make such comparisons worthless.
I don’t have time to be be exhaustive. This is just my rant.

From the very start I could see the AS3 had matured and was much more robust than AS2 was. To make AS2 work the way I wanted I had several ugly hacks. I started writting in AS3 wait for some deficiancy or bug to cause me to create the same ugly hacks. As of this point of being 90% done there is only one that really stands out and this is when looking for the parent of text object you need to go up two levels instead of one. There is some invisible object that may need to be there, but it is not documented and doesn’t really make any sense.

The next thing I notices is how much more compact the applicaiton was. Part of this is because Adobe left out components that I needed so I had to write my own windowing and DateChooser (which I now offer for free to anyone that emails me) These are definately smaller than the old Adobe AS2 components, but still I have added more features and code to this version and it is still over 30% smaller.

Speed.  Everything is faster!! Drawing on the screen, interacting with the database and saving data are all faster. Adobe claims 4-10x faster code and I think my application is in the 6-8 range. Just a feeling, but it is more than 4x and doesn’t feel like a magnitude overall (although some individual things feel 10x faster.)

And as I put in my last post Browser Wars most people have migrated to Flash 9+. This makes me feel much better about releasing this new software on the world.

Of course all this has meant that I needed to rethink the application and not just recompile it was a serious rethink of the code and structure to make AS3 work, but it is so much cleaner that I can not  go back to AS2.

Plangarden.com is a website to help vegetable gardeners plan and manage a vegetable garden. But behind this is the most advanced web site and application.

First the browsers:
Just two short years ago IE had the lead with 82% of the web viewers while Firefox was just under 14%. Today that has changed to 66% for IE and 28% for Firefox and Safari has posted real numbers at 5%. Apparently IE7 which was released in late 2006 only showed the world what browsing ‘could be’ as it was implementing features that Firefox already. While I am not an advocate of one over the other, it has been interesting to watch the trends over the year. It has gone from “Nothing can stop Netscape” to “Netscape is dead” to “Wow, I didn’t think Firefox would make a dent in market share any more”. Not only has Firefox made a dent, but Safari is posting some pretty impressive numbers for Plangarden considering what Apple’s overall market share is.

Flash:
Back in 2006 Flash 9 was only 9% of the Plangarden users. At the time over 14% of the vegetable gardeners where clinging to version 7. In the course of just one year that all changed. By August 2007 the numbers had changed to only 10% of the people using 8 or below. Still as I started working on a version that would only work on Flash 9 players I was a bit concerned that 10% of the people would have to upgrade or not be able to use the application. But since it has taken a year to get the whole application migrated the number are now tipped so that only a percent or two are on a version below Flash 9.

Finally OS:
All you have to do is watch the silly Apple commercials to know what is going on in the PC vs Apple war. While Apple is still a LONG ways from being a serious threat to Microsoft’s dominance, they have taken a considerable amount of market share as Vista deals with many hiccups in the new OS. Plangarden has seen a huge up tick on Macs as well. In 2006 only 3% of the gardeners where using Mac now it is up to 9%.  A sizable jump for a two year period. I am now looking at getting my first Mac just to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Again, I am not here to pass judgment on IE vs Firefox or PC vs Mac. I am simply reporting on trends of vegetable gardeners. And while vegetable gardening may be a low technology activity, the vegetable gardeners themselves are fairly high tech and seem to follow trends of high tech and are more on the leading edge then the trailing edge of technology.

Go Veggy Gardeners!!!!

Once I get back from vacation I will be doing some final polishing to the site, then finish up the long overdue version 2.0 of the applicaiton.

On the garden front I am in full harvest and replanting as the season has been great this year. The Brandywine tomatoes are a success, and since they have to grow in a coldframe that is a big deal for me. It means that I can grow real tomatoes and get real results.

Strawberries have been late this year, but have come on strong.

Corn is there, but it is still to early to know if it is going to succeed or not. It is always an iffy vegetable to grow in the fog.

The garden is done and ready for a week with only one scheduled water. It should be fine.

Having moved around and been involved in gardening since I was a child, I knew that when I got to Half Moon Bay that I was going to be challenged in vegetable gardening.  All the lessons that I had learned in the midwest and Arizona and Southern California where not going to work in the Bay Area.  After a few miserable failures, I searched for books and was lucky enough to find Pam Peirce’s book.

I read to book in bed, I took it out with me to the garden. I would use it to answer my wife’s questions.  My respect for Pam had grown to the point where see was a Rock Star of Gardening in my eyes.

Last weekend the local edible gardening club had invited her to speak at a meeting. I jumped at the opportunity and took my worn, dirt covered book in tow and sat listening to her wonderful talk. Afterwards I took my book up and had her sign it. Also because I know how authors get paid by publishers, I purchased her second book and had her sign that too.

I was also glad to see that I was not the only one that appreciated Pam’s work as nearly 50 people showed up and most lined up to get her signature as well.

It was also nice to sit down and talk with Pam about some of the oddities of this years growing season and share gardening stories. She matched the person that I had envisioned in my mind and was very pleasant to talk with. Vegetable gardening is clearly her passion and her years of experience it self evident.

If you vegetable garden in the Bay Area, you need to read her book. If you want to know what she is up or her views on the current climate and vegetable plantings, you can follow her blog at Golden Gate Gardener or if you are more old fashion you can follow her columns in the San Francisco Chronicle.