Rev vs. AJAX...Or Web-Aware Apps vs. Web Apps

[Dan Shafer]

Andre......

I've been doing a LOT of thinking and analysis and research and  
investigation the past two weeks on this topic, so your post  
triggered in me a thought that perhaps I should share some of my  
conclusions with this group.

I am acutely aware of Richard Gaskin's wonderful thinking in his  
essay, "Beyond the Browser", as I write these thoughts. (URL: http:// 
www.fourthworld.com/embassy/articles/netapps.html) And I want to say  
at the outset that my thoughts are still forming, so none of this is  
conclusion so much as it is interim feeling.

Given that one knows how to program reasonably proficiently in Rev  
and given Rev's superb ability to interact with the Internet in many  
different ways, why in the world would one want to learn, master or  
use techniques that deploy applications inside the Web browser? That  
question's been on my mind a lot lately. I have lost two projects in  
the past six months because I insisted on using Rev for them. In one  
case, only Java would have actually satisfied the client and since  
I'm entirely too old to learn Java (or, for that matter, to wait for  
Java apps to compile), but the other one would have been mine if I'd  
been willing to write it in anything viewed by the client as  
standard. That by itself isn't enough reason to change tools.

Another client for whom I've written three relatively large apps in  
Rev has been advised by his new CEO to require me to rewrite them in  
some more standard language or tool/environment. He may not listen to  
the advice but he has raised the interesting question of what happens  
if I (his language) "get stomped on by a dinosaur". Even though the  
apps would keep running, of course, finding programmers to maintain  
and extend them would be significantly more difficult than with, say,  
Basic or Java or C++ (which I will never learn). Or, for that matter,  
JavaScript/XML.

So one reason to investigate alternative development tools and  
languages is just the whole issue of critical mass of programming  
talent and deployment options.

Another upside to doing Web apps in AJAX or some other open tool (my  
current favorite being Laszlo - URL: http://www.laszlosystems.com and  
http://www.openlaszlo.org) is that *all* of the issues of cross- 
platform delivery just go away. Yeah, there are still some minor  
inconveniences with cross-browser issues but with Laszlo in  
particular they are absolutely ignorable. Laszlo spits out SWF files  
that play in any Flash player from 5.0 forward, and because of the  
Flash technology are guaranteed to work in any browser (since over  
99% of them  have Flash plug-ins already installed).

Which brings me to the third major plus for Web apps: they just work  
without the user having to download, install, configure or even know  
about the application itself. A nice side effect: if the app needs  
upgrading or fixing, you fix it one place and everyone gets it  
without hassle or even necessarily being aware of it.

Until now, the biggest single drawback to Web apps -- at least in my  
mind and that of many others -- has been the extremely limited and  
limiting UI the browser affords. But with Laszlo in particular and  
increasingly with AJAX, that limitation is disappearing.

Now, lest you conclude that I'm ready to chuck Rev in favor of Laszlo  
or AJAX, let me assure you that isn't in the cards, at least not yet.  
Because standalone apps still have some big advantages and of course  
Rev adds to those with its rapid development capability for cross- 
platform software. Standalone apps are still:

* generally faster than Web apps
* not dependent upon a reasonably fast Internet connection
* not dependent on a server "out there somewhere" being up and  
running and not overloaded
* better looking with better user experiences (at least potentially)
* easier to protect against unauthorized use
* able to read and write data to and from the user's local drive  
(which neither Laszlo nor AJAX can do, being confined in a security  
sandbox)

So that's my take for the moment. I don't claim any of this to be  
exhaustive, of course; there are lots of pros and cons of both kinds  
of apps that I've omitted either because I can't think of them at the  
moment or because I don't know about them at all.

We live in interesting times.

On Oct 13, 2005, at 12:23 PM, Andre Garzia wrote:

> It's just me or those AJAX guys seems a little code masochists...
>



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dan Shafer, Information Product Consultant and Author
http://www.shafermedia.com
Get my book, "Revolution: Software at the Speed of Thought"
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