"rather not have apps... from a web page"

[Len Morgan]

I think I created a monster with my related thread last week.  It seems 
that people were left with the idea that I wanted to covertly download  
and run executables on client's machines. Well, that's kinda sorta true 
but my intentions were (kinda sorta) honorable.

The users of the 500 workstations wouldn't have a problem with an exe 
being installed on their machine - most of them wouldn't have a clue 
what I was talking about.  The problem was the network administrator 
(who has the keys to the door we'd have to get through to get the 
programming contract).  HE is the one who objects to having anything 
loaded on the workstations.

His objections really center  around maintenance since he doesn't want 
to have to "touch" 500 machines every time there is an upgrade.  That is 
an understandable concern on his part and what I was looking for was a 
way to automatically distribute the code that would take (almost) no 
work on the end users part, AND be upgradeable simply (from the user's 
point of view).

The idea of a very simple stand-alone that could be launched from a 
web-server which would then "phone-home" to load stacks as needed was 
something I think I could "sell" to him if I could show that it was a) 
simple enough for an end user and b) would cause him any work.  The 
other requirement I had to contend with was that users should be able to 
run the program from home just as easily. This is a no-brainer if the 
application is entirely Web/xHTML based but I don't downloading a small 
stand-alone would be that much of a burden either.  One of the 
"problems" I have with this group is that they are a pretty sharp group 
of people that maybe can't always remember how dense some end users can 
be.  I've written big complete applications that had to be used by 
people that couldn't spell G.E.D.!  The user base I'm after this time is 
somewhat better but not much.

Why not use xHTML?  I think even our newbies can answer this one.  Make 
one little slip up in the page you send back and the whole screen gets 
screwed up!  I have to concern myself with micro-managing every little 
aspect on the screen and remember state from page to page.  RR handles a 
lot of this for me letting me concentrate on the application and what 
the user interacts with instead of the minutia (sp?) whipping a browser 
into submission.  Yes, XUL/Mozilla/Firefox would help quite a bit but 
the NA wouldn't agree to install Firefox either.  Throw into the mix the 
fact that I've got to have something that must be cross platform and RR 
looks even better (to me at least).

In reality, I only had to "snow" one guy to get to the next step in the 
process and that's what I was seeking advice on: how could I fool HIM so 
it didn't look like anything was getting installed.  I appreciate all 
the advice and suggestions I got from this group.  The speed and quality 
of response to problems/questions here is unlike anything I've ever seen!!!!

len morgan