
Flash vs. Ajax (merits of platforms building 'Buzzword' wordprocessor) - bootload
http://blog.virtub.com/?p=8
======
benhoyt
Heh, looks like a really nice GUI. See the video of the founder using it:
<http://blog.virtub.com/?p=15>

Seems to me the difference between "web app" and "desktop app" is getting more
and more fuzzy. Is it a web app because it's written in Flash? Is it a web app
because it (presumably) doesn't store anything on your machine?

Given that desktop apps these days often interact heavily with data from the
web (Google Earth, for instance), what exactly is the definition of "web app"
now?

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mxh
My definitions:

Web App: Application developed entirely using open standards, which (aims to)
run in any browser, requiring no additional vendor plugins.

Desktop App: Application designed to launch from the user's desktop, without
reference to a web browser.

Thick Client: Any desktop app that makes heavy use of the Internet, or any
"Web App"-like thing that makes use of non-standard extensions to the browser.

Reasonable people may disagree on this, and the differences are pretty fuzzy,
but my distinctions are based upon the development problems I feel each type
of approach must address.

Web App: Works on (most any) platform, no installation, but you have to deal
with cross-browser issues, and you're limited by the technology of the web (no
local FS access, for instance.)

Desktop App: Tied to one architecture (or worry about JVM incompatibilities),
installation hassles, but you get an incredibly rich set of capabilities.

Thick Client: If it's a desktop app that talks to the network, you've got all
the desktop tradeoffs, plus richer data, plus worries about what happens when
the user works offline. If it's a "Web App" using non-standard extensions
(Flash, Silverlight) you've got to worry about whether the user has the right
version installed, and licensing hassles and/or fees on the server side and/or
in the toolchain. You're also constrained by the capabilities of the
extensions, but, in practice, development seems easier than for a pure Web
App.

I realize that these definitions mean that lots of things (YouTube) people
think of as Web Apps aren't (to me, anyway), but I'm okay with that. It seems
a crucial distinction that, once you're targeting the Flash client, you're not
really solving the same set of (technical) problems as someone targeting a
browser.

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gibsonf1
Are any of you working on Flex/Apollo UI startups? I have to admit, the demo I
saw of Flex/Apollo at the Salesforce developers conference was _really_
impressive. However, my partner isn't convinced that going with a particular
company's solution is the way to go, so we are sticking with javascript for
our UI for now.

~~~
codeLove
Your choice #1 must always be javascript. Why lock yourself to Adobe? I can
state a very good example.

One of the most widely used components in flash is the webservice component.
An app i built in flash depends entirely on this component. But when the
latest version of Flash, Flash cs3 came out, there is no webservice component
in it! To rewrite my app in Actionscript 3, i must rebuild my app in Flash
cs3. Now that this component in not included, its impossible to update my
app.[This component is available in Flex, and Adobe can port that component to
flash CS3 in no time. They are not doing it for obvious business reason]

Bottomline is,building your business on top of any closed system is a bad
idea.

[Side note: Flex is not a big thing as Adobe markets it. Its Flash itself, but
built to attract Java developers (developers who come from a background where
Flash's timeline concept is unheard of). Flex need to be used ONLY if you cant
find a decent actionscript developer. This is because, the only thing Flex
does is to provide the developer with a lot of pre cooked UI elements.But by
doing so, you will end up using a lot of unwanted code resulting in bloated
file size.Do you really want to build a business on top of a very generalized
component set? Reducing file size 300k to 10 k is good for you.Hire a decent
local actionscript programmer if you have to go with Flash.]

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dogger
I don't get the flash decision. Lots of "wow cool" flashy transitions etc, but
who cares about them when you want to write a quick document quickly on the
web. For that matter who cares about whether it will match exactly when you
print it? All I want is a fast, quick, editor that interoperates with other
things easily (eg with a javascript/ajax ui, you can resize the font from the
browser etc... not so with flash).

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dawie
I am looking into using Flex for my next webapp

