Revolution and the Web, feedback wanted, Part 1 of 3

[Brian Yennie]

> I don't fully understand the interest in translating Rev projects  
> so they run in the (or most of the) popular browsers... seems kind  
> of like trying to get Flash to make standalone apps (http:// 
> www.multidmedia.com/software/mdmstudio/).

I think maybe some of the disagreement comes from the fact that an  
AJAX exporter for Rev targets a whole new market. The projects that  
people use Rev for now might not be the same projects that would work  
well in a browser; however, there is a HUGE market for the first  
really useable RAD tool for spitting out AJAX apps - and if it was  
based on Rev it would have the nice side-effect of producing Mac,  
Windows and Linux standalones at the same time.

I see what you're saying about Flash to standalone, but the  
difference is that there are already plenty of great tools (like  
Revolution) for creating standalone apps. There really aren't any  
viable RAD tools for the web, IMO. There are some interesting  
attempts out there, but I think the market is still wide open. Plus,  
there is a ton of benefit in moving something from the desktop to the  
web - but there's not much motivation to go the other way.

> Seems like especially now that RR will be bundling Chipp's browser  
> plugin,  a better direction might be just *replacing* the user's  
> browser, since web technologies (like Flash) can now run in a stack.

But what user has any desire to replace their web browser with  
another application that just has the same web browser embedded  
inside of it?

To me the bottom line here is efficiency - RAD. There's nothing Rev  
can spit out for the web that can't already be developed without it,  
but any RAD tool that made it even 10% easier to deploy AJAX apps  
stands to make a killing.

- Brian