RE: GUI development language

but given the right architecture the exact same thing can happen
with thick clients.

Given the _right_ architecture almost anything is possible... Many may
hate them, but MS supports a deployment of millions of PCs, spends
billions to do it, and even then they get it wrong on occasion (eg: the
WGA outage last weekend.) Point is, "can" it be done. Sure. Can it
realistically be done? Not likely.

We recently started using SalesForce.com for our CRM. Is that an

application

you would consider to have better usability than a thick client Walden?

We too use SFDC. There are many things they do right, but I'd agree,
it's not the best interface around. However, I don't believe that to be
an indictment of a browser interface, but rather one of their
architecture and programming decisions. Then again, to be fair to them,
there aren't many of us running apps with 700,000 users. :)

... but after the .war is deployed to a server is that
still a capability?

I believe (but I'm far from sure) that you do not have that capability
in Java. To be honest, I think it's less a "java" issue and more an
app-server issue, but now we're nit-picking. :)

I have the same question for .NET (which I am guessing
is what you were basing the statement on).

Yes you can. Both on the same machine and on a remote machine (or in a
VM if you run that way). Not my favorite thing to do, I'd rather have
good logging w/log4net and pump up the logging level, but if you need it
it's there.

-Walden