{title updated}

I was talking to Miguel about the advantages and disadvantages of the CGI way of making web apps, and had in mind the yearly years of it and how alternative solutions like Java Servets proposed a much more sophisticated way to handle the emerging web application needs. Then I stumble upon a @voidspace's blog entry: Is CGI dead? and the argument of simplicity (as I remember Miguel rightfully pointed this also) was put on the table and I don't disagree at all with it. And interesting is to notice that even Java Servlets simplicity (although not as simple as the CGI protocol is) made it the very foundation of several other famous frameworks, which in the end do a lot of the dirty work that software developers used to have.

It's always the tradeoff: with a very simple (but elegant) solution you easy it's adoption, and on its solid base several other layers of software can be built, providing each one more features to the components that will lay on top.