Re: What do I use?

Yes, and I find them rather "clunky" compared to standard tools (Mainframe, iSeries, and Linux that is...)

I'm not saying that you cannot make pretty good looking apps on the web these days, just that standalone apps still look better. Also the oft-quoted benefit of easy-to-deploy is often far less easy than one would expect. :)

-Paul

On Apr 15, 2007, at 1:15 AM, richard@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

I'm coming in on the middle of this, but I had to add my two cents.

I certainly do not buy that the web and its tools are good enough today.
They are --> maybe <--- about as good as running applications on an very
early System36. For subjective proof, look at the very sophisticated and
cutting edge tools Google has now made available - wordprocessing and
spreadsheet in particular. They are good, but not many people are throwing
out Word and Excel to change to them. The standalone applications are
simply
*better*.

Have you worked with any of the web development tools today ?

Visual Studio 2005 or Eclipse/WDSC are great for writing web applications
today that look and feel much nicer than a 36 app :-)

You can even use straight RPG or tools such as RPG Smart Pages to write
CGI-based web applications with very little effort and they perform with
sub-second response times.

Comparing MS Word to the google apps is not really a very good comparision
since most web apps are not meant to replace a hugh desktop application
such as MS Word. Nobody who already has MS Office is going to throw it
our for google apps. However Open Office is looking pretty good these
days. Check it out (http://wwwopenoffice.org)

To take that further, to do much of anything intensive with a web
interface,
such as play a video, you have to have locally installed software anyway.

Again, not a good comparison since web browsers are not meant to run video
applications natively. That's why you have complementary plugins such as
Flash and Quicktime. Actually running video in a web page is a good
example of relatively seamlessly mixing web and desktop technology.

I do not even agree that web interfaces are the "way of the future." We
are
entering a time where CPUs are both plentiful and powerful, memory is
increasing by leaps and bounds, and everything is pretty much connected by
broadband. This is an ideal and fertile environment for locally hosted
interfaces to remote information and applications. (Broadband will only
get
faster and better.)

I agree with you "sort-of". The new term "smart-client" is being applied
to desktop applications that can talk to a remote server via HTTP or web
service calls.

I personally like desktop "smart-client" apps better than web apps for
presentation, however the managability of a pure web interface makes it
win hands-down 97.65% of the time. (Nice made up statistic :-) )

Seriously though, our customers are all asking for web based interfaces to
make app deployment easier. Imagine deploying your app to 1000 plus PC's
across an organization running a mix of Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000, XP and
Vista. While a little exaggerated this is the bane of all network
administrators existence although it is job security :-)

If your market research is telling you that the web app is not the way of
the future, I would maybe dig a little deeper into the research bin.

Just my two cents......

Regards,
Richard Schoen
RJS Software Systems Inc.
"Providing Your....iNFORMATION NOW!"
Email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Web Site: http://www.rjssoftware.com
Tel: (952) 898-3038
Fax: (952) 898-1781
Toll Free: (888) RJSSOFT
----------------------------------------------------------------------

message: 1
date: Sat, 14 Apr 2007 14:36:20 -0500
from: "Paul Raulerson" <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: RE: What do I use?

I certainly do not buy that the web and its tools are good enough today.
They are --> maybe <--- about as good as running applications on an very
early System36. For subjective proof, look at the very sophisticated and
cutting edge tools Google has now made available - wordprocessing and
spreadsheet in particular. They are good, but not many people are throwing
out Word and Excel to change to them. The standalone applications are
simply
*better*.

To take that further, to do much of anything intensive with a web
interface,
such as play a video, you have to have locally installed software anyway.

I do not even agree that web interfaces are the "way of the future." We
are
entering a time where CPUs are both plentiful and powerful, memory is
increasing by leaps and bounds, and everything is pretty much connected by
broadband. This is an ideal and fertile environment for locally hosted
interfaces to remote information and applications. (Broadband will only
get
faster and better.)

To address your final issue, a VA-RPG application is every bit as solid as
a
green screen application running in an emulator, and usually provides for
a
much better user experience than a standalone web application.

Now, even given that, there are some pretty good web applications out
there
today and yes, they are getting better. (Look at Google Earth for
example.)
And there are even situations where a web interface is superior to a local
(i.e. fat) interface, but that is the exception, not the general rule.

-Paul
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