Web vs Desktop Applications (again)
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Hi Folks:
In a seaside related thread Andy wrote: > 1) Blair is no great believer in Web services... or rather, he sees > them as a step back in time to the "dumb terminals talking to > mainframes days" of yore and, therefore, finds them rather less than > exciting and of little interest. Blair, please correct me if I'm wrong > here. Blair (AFAIK) not responded, let us think that stated by Andy is true. This is an interesting topic, considering that too many people (and companies) are showing (and requesting) that the only possibility of be succesful with an application today is doing it "webable". Some efforts to improve the UI at the web are Ajax, Comet (all old ideas with new names) and the progress exist, but yet not as a desktop app. By other hand, the "potential users" of a web app are very much, letting them try/use without installing anything in their own computers. I'm interested in hear opinions about web vs desktop apps in the near future and the rol of Dolphin Smalltalk as application development tool, considering both environments (web/desktop) and differents contexts (as software to corporations, small companies, individual users) and also different sort of developers (individual developers, small development companies, big development companies). Cheers. gsa. |
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Very interesting topic indeed...
In my opinion, Desktop apps are viable regarding end users... Also, web apps are also viable... The later being more viable in scenarios such as E Commerce. Buzz words aside, developers design software applications that meet the users needs. Some applications require web capability due to the nature of the business model and the types of products and services offered. I don't believe there is a right or wrong answer when it comes to what type of applications developers should build. For example, VOIP applications obviously require the use of the Internet or Intranet; they cannot function without an interface to the web. On the other hand, Computer Graphics, PIM or Project Mgmt tools do not require web access. In these applications, web access only provides the means to share information over great distance via collaboration. However; these types of applications can operate in stand alone mode with no web access required. The web doesn't provide a "Magic Bullet"... You can advertise that your application "Taste Great" or is "Less Filling" or is "Web Enabled". However, unless these technologies add value to the the existing intrinsic value of the application, they are nothing more than "Buzz Words" for advertising/marketing. At present, there are many scenarios where web-enabled applications add value to the end users experience, the software acrhitecture and information infrastructure. The Spray Web Services Toolkit provides the means to build such applications. This allows for the design and deployment of Thin Clients consuming services offered via an API or group of APIs provided by one or more application servers. In the case of Dolphin Smalltalk and Spray, the desktop applications are web-enabled in order to access and consume information offered by the application server as services. Again, there is no "Magic Bullet" as developers approach their designs based on how the application(s) will be deployd, used, information flow and work flow process models. For some, this process is Objective; for other developers, its more of a Subjective process. Just my two centavos worth... PAX |
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In reply to this post by garduino
> I'm interested in hear opinions about web vs desktop apps in the near
> future and the role of Dolphin Smalltalk as application development > tool, considering both environments (web/desktop) and differents > contexts At STS2006 - the WithStyle guys demonstrated a client application that was written with the new Visual Works Pollock framework. What was interesting (and in my opinion kind of gross at the same time - I have mixed views on this) was that their application UI was completely defined in XML using technologies like XML Events (there was some buzzword for this) and CSS + other XML buzzy things. What they were getting at was that the UI was speced out separately from the ST implementation, and a web designer could totally reconfigure it. This was a desktop application (they could minimize and hide it etc) - and widgets were aligned and constrained with CSS like syntax. Similarly callbacks were also defined in the XML and they called out to application smalltalk code. I didn't mind the CSS bit - and being able to work with web/graphic designers on a UI in this way made sense, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth wondering why you wanted to specify events to code in this manner as well? They commented that I should think about - what if I had a tool that let me specify this (like the OA visual designer - which instead of persisting as bytes in a method, saved as XML in an editable file). I'm still trying to think about this one... why the XMLevents? If you do this you still want to version your "code" like other smalltalk code and find senders/implementors etc so it opens up a huge can of worms... is it worth all of this - or is it just "techno-wank" (thats uk for technology for technology sake). I'm not sure - but they were certainly experimenting with something... and this also hinted that Desktop and Web Apps become blurred with this model - as in a way, their framework (with the VS stuff) is basically a new type of "web browser". They also mentioned they were investigating some ECMA-Smalltalk language that could live in a standard browser but the technology has been bought by someone by ways of some acquisition (I think its IBM). Anyway, this is a different slant on your question - and I'm not sure if OA would go this way - but it certainly was food for thought. Tim |
Re: Web vs Desktop Applications (again)
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In reply to this post by garduino
Well, one could develop an AJAX (MVP) engine on the browser client and a
server engine on the Dolphin Smalltalk server side which would be polymorphic with the existing MVP frameworks so one could deploy the same code on the client and on the web at the same time. Best regards, David [hidden email] wrote: > Hi Folks: > > In a seaside related thread Andy wrote: > >> 1) Blair is no great believer in Web services... or rather, he sees >> them as a step back in time to the "dumb terminals talking to >> mainframes days" of yore and, therefore, finds them rather less than >> exciting and of little interest. Blair, please correct me if I'm wrong >> here. > > Blair (AFAIK) not responded, let us think that stated by Andy is true. > > This is an interesting topic, considering that too many people (and > companies) are showing (and requesting) that the only possibility of be > succesful with an application today is doing it "webable". > > Some efforts to improve the UI at the web are Ajax, Comet (all old > ideas with new names) and the progress exist, but yet not as a desktop > app. By other hand, the "potential users" of a web app are very much, > letting them try/use without installing anything in their own > computers. > > I'm interested in hear opinions about web vs desktop apps in the near > future and the rol of Dolphin Smalltalk as application development > tool, considering both environments (web/desktop) and differents > contexts (as software to corporations, small companies, individual > users) and also different sort of developers (individual developers, > small development companies, big development companies). > > Cheers. > gsa. > |
Re: Web vs Desktop Applications (again)
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David Gorisek wrote:
> Well, one could develop an AJAX (MVP) engine on the browser client and a > server engine on the Dolphin Smalltalk server side which would be > polymorphic with the existing MVP frameworks so one could deploy the > same code on the client and on the web at the same time. > > Best regards, > > David > > > [hidden email] wrote: > >> Hi Folks: >> >> In a seaside related thread Andy wrote: >> >>> 1) Blair is no great believer in Web services... or rather, he sees >>> them as a step back in time to the "dumb terminals talking to >>> mainframes days" of yore and, therefore, finds them rather less than >>> exciting and of little interest. Blair, please correct me if I'm wrong >>> here. >> >> >> Blair (AFAIK) not responded, let us think that stated by Andy is true. >> >> This is an interesting topic, considering that too many people (and >> companies) are showing (and requesting) that the only possibility of be >> succesful with an application today is doing it "webable". >> >> Some efforts to improve the UI at the web are Ajax, Comet (all old >> ideas with new names) and the progress exist, but yet not as a desktop >> app. By other hand, the "potential users" of a web app are very much, >> letting them try/use without installing anything in their own >> computers. >> >> I'm interested in hear opinions about web vs desktop apps in the near >> future and the rol of Dolphin Smalltalk as application development >> tool, considering both environments (web/desktop) and differents >> contexts (as software to corporations, small companies, individual >> users) and also different sort of developers (individual developers, >> small development companies, big development companies). >> >> Cheers. >> gsa. >> Hi David: I understand the idea, but can't figure out the "how-to". I think that is an interesting approach but need more info to make some tests, can you point some documentation or so to start? Thanks in Advance. Also thanks to other people that responded. Cheers. gsa. |
Re: Web vs Desktop Applications (again)
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In reply to this post by Tim M
It is very clear that trend is toward unification of Web and GUI apps.
WithStyle is one example of this, other is a forthcoming Microsoft Vista. Vista's GUI is declared in XML (SAML) and CSS (I think), similar as WithStyle. Also if you look at Vista, you'll see GUI design pretty similar to web pages. On the other side web apps got Ajax which make them much more interactive and they are coming closer and closer to GUI apps. Conclusion: web apps get more and more GUI features while on the other side GUI apps get more and more web features. You can expect in few year an unified UI, and that is good! Janko macta wrote: > >> I'm interested in hear opinions about web vs desktop apps in the near >> future and the role of Dolphin Smalltalk as application development >> tool, considering both environments (web/desktop) and differents >> contexts > > > At STS2006 - the WithStyle guys demonstrated a client application that > was written with the new Visual Works Pollock framework. > > What was interesting (and in my opinion kind of gross at the same time - > I have mixed views on this) was that their application UI was completely > defined in XML using technologies like XML Events (there was some > buzzword for this) and CSS + other XML buzzy things. > > What they were getting at was that the UI was speced out separately from > the ST implementation, and a web designer could totally reconfigure it. > This was a desktop application (they could minimize and hide it etc) - > and widgets were aligned and constrained with CSS like syntax. Similarly > callbacks were also defined in the XML and they called out to > application smalltalk code. > > I didn't mind the CSS bit - and being able to work with web/graphic > designers on a UI in this way made sense, I was left with a bad taste in > my mouth wondering why you wanted to specify events to code in this > manner as well? They commented that I should think about - what if I had > a tool that let me specify this (like the OA visual designer - which > instead of persisting as bytes in a method, saved as XML in an editable > file). > > I'm still trying to think about this one... why the XMLevents? If you do > this you still want to version your "code" like other smalltalk code and > find senders/implementors etc so it opens up a huge can of worms... is > it worth all of this - or is it just "techno-wank" (thats uk for > technology for technology sake). > > I'm not sure - but they were certainly experimenting with something... > and this also hinted that Desktop and Web Apps become blurred with this > model - as in a way, their framework (with the VS stuff) is basically a > new type of "web browser". They also mentioned they were investigating > some ECMA-Smalltalk language that could live in a standard browser but > the technology has been bought by someone by ways of some acquisition (I > think its IBM). > > Anyway, this is a different slant on your question - and I'm not sure if > OA would go this way - but it certainly was food for thought. > > Tim > > |
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