Revolution => Flash

[Richard Gaskin]

Ken's post raised the question of the cost/benefit ratio of developing a 
Rev plugin, and while it touched on many of the highlights on the cost 
side it didn't address much of the benefit side.

I can't really call that an omission from his post, as I don't believe 
there are many, if any at all.

The few ostensible benefits are seductive but generally haven't held up 
well to analysis in previous discussions.  Let's take a look at them:

The main ostensible benefit of a plugin is that it lightens the load for 
deploying Rev-based media.  Just hand out a URL, the story goes, and 
that's all the user needs to run your stuff.

That's true only to the degree that someone takes up the suggestion of 
building a JavaScript library for common Rev tasks, and writes an 
exporter to translate Rev stuff for true browser-only deployment.  Thus 
far no one has pursued this, and it remains the only option that truly 
addresses the central issue of zero-installation.

Even if a browser plugin were available, you still wouldn't be able to 
run Rev media until you first convince IT staffers among your target 
audience that they should locate, download, and install this plugin on 
all systems expected to run Rev.

If you could win that argument with IT over plugins in the future, you 
can win it today to deploy a standalone that acts as a browser's helper 
app, downloading and running any Rev stacks it needs, right now.

But if you can't win that argument, whether it's a plugin or a helper 
app standalone won't matter: it won't get installed, and your user still 
won't be able to run your Rev stacks.

Rev-based helper app standalones provide all of the benefits of a 
plugin, and much more.  They aren't limited by the browser UI, can 
retain state information locally, can provide an offline mode if 
desired, can have multiple windows, etc. etc.

And best of all, there's nothing stopping any of us from deploying such 
systems with the technology we have in hand right now.  Many of us do.

Details on this issue have been covered in depth before -- these three 
posts may serve as a reasonable summary:

<http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-revolution/2006-November/089327.html>
<http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-revolution/2006-November/090333.html>
<http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-revolution/2004-February/031316.html>


So what about sites where IT requires true zero-install?  Well, even if 
RunRev saddled themselves with the expense of such a venture, taking 
time away from more critical priorities to put this in our hands, it 
still wouldn't be zero-install, and you'd be having the same 
installation discussion with your customers that you can have today, 
leaving RunRev free to pursue things with a higher cost/benefit ratio.

I have one client whose product market is expanding into segments which 
require a true zero-install solution.  For that product we're writing an 
exporter which splits the program's logic into two halves, so that on 
the client we'll deliver the UI and content in HTML/JavaScript, and use 
a combination of Rev CGI and MySQL providing the other half of the 
functionality on the server side.

Translating the UI to JavaScript, Java, or Flash is the only option for 
delivering media in a browser which doesn't require an additional 
installation.

If there's a compelling must-have business case to be made for a plugin 
I'd like to hear it.  Over the many years this has been discussed I 
haven't seen it yet.  Sure, it'd be nice to have, but there are a lot of 
nice-to-haves and a long list of must-haves too.  I'd prefer to see 
RunRev address this nice-to-have after all the must-haves are shipping.


And while we wait another few years for RunRev to clear their plates to 
get into a position where a plugin could be responsibly considered, take 
a look at all the energy Adobe's putting into AIR:
<http://labs.adobe.com/showcase/air/>

Web 2.0 was about moving ever more functionality into the browser.  But 
as AIR, Google Earth, and other significant initiatives suggest, Web 3.0 
is taking place beyond the browser.

You can join that revolution right now, 'cause Rev's been doing that 
extremely well for years.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
  _______________________________________________________
  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com