From: "The ExpertFlyer.com Team" <[email protected]>
To: "Paul..."
X-pstn-addresses: from <[email protected]> [100/3]
As we have said before the next release which will be coming shortly will fix these issues. However posting it on frequent flyer forums and forwarding us the answers doesn't make the work go any faster or affect our development efforts.
Thank you,
The ExpertFlyer.com Team
My post to another forum generated several useful replies which I forwarded to Expertflyer. Those replies are below:
Is this a new problem? I've found ExpertFlyer extremely difficult to
use over slow (particularly high-latency) links from day one. It seems
that each request you make turns into a very large number of HTTP
connections back and forth, before the response page is rendered.
(Look at the bottom left corner of your browser to see how many times
it is asking for new data.) As a result, I've found it almost unusable
over high-latency connections like cellphone-based PDAs. Throw an
international link into the mix (like trying to access from Hong Kong)
and I can see why it would be a nightmare.
My guess is that they test the stuff over broadband connections in the
United States, which is why they don't see a problem...
...
This is nothing new. I write them after each "upgrade" noting that the
changes they have made have further degraded performance on my
BlackBerry and other PDAs. They are always quick to respond that
a "thin" version of the site is in the works, but absolutely every
change thus far have limited my ability to access the site on a
wireless client.
I have assessed that they do not consider wireless access to be a
priority, or the group of wireless users to be a significant potential
customer base.
...
They don't need a "thin" version of the site so much as they need to
re-code it in a less brain-damaged way. There's absolutely no reason
why you shouldn't be able to perform each of the site's operations
(search availability, flight status, fare search, etc.) with a single
HTTP POST operation sent to the server, followed by a single page of
response. Instead, they have some kind of insane back-and-forth
protocol (that I confess I haven't examined closely) that kills
performance over high-latency links and that could easily be done with
a single request-reply pair.
...
Fair enough, but even disregarding the speed issues, their site
challenges the anemic BlackBerry browser and a "no-frills" site would
be highly welcome from me.
...
EF is using web2.0/AJAX which may not be compatible with some of the
mobile browsers out there.
IMO, they need to invest in a scaled down version of the site for
their mobile community. Something similar to aa2go.com.
And yes, I realize that this means more work for them, and at a time
where they are having larger issues, but it needs to be done. I also
seem to recall that they have tweaked the regular UI a couple of times
over the past six months. It looks nice, now move along to fix other
things.
...
Looks like EVERY ExpertFlyer page loads a lot of large javascript
scripts and stylesheets, whether needed or not. There are 15 scripts
and 10 stylesheets just on the front page (where you enter
username/password) and every other page.
But that doesn't annoy me as much as the service problems I've been
experiencing the last couple of weeks, which are making me consider
not renewing my subscription when it expires in a couple of months.