What the hell people?!

[jim]

I've spent 2 days looking at Adobe AIR, ASP.Net, Joomla, Drupal, Dot Net
Nuke, JavaFX, and so on......and it just sickens me.

What's the problem here? All I want to do is write a desktop/webservices
app and stream it to the end user's desktop.

We had activeX. It wasn't perfect for streaming apps, but it was a damned
sight better than anything on the market - and Microsoft is killing it.

What the hell, people? Why is it so damned hard to give developers a gui
development platform like Visual Basic (old school or .Net) that streams an
application to end users? Thinstall claims to do it, but I am not sure that
it does so over the internet - I think it is meant for local lans.

This web application thing is a fucking joke. What we need is a complete
break from the broken web's old tools of HTML, XHTML, CSS, etc. (which are
all simply hacks layered on top of a network created for TEXT
transmissions). We need a new platform that utilizes TCPIP networks
(internal or internet) to deliver actual, functional, kick-ass desktop
applications.

This may mean a new, open standards/source browser that hosts applications.
It may mean a new protocol for sending the apps to the new browser and
having them run there.

I don't know exactly what it will entail...but I do know this.... The web
is fucking broken when it comes to producing server hosted, no-install
desktop/webservices based applications that don't look like some 3 year old
coded them.

Give me a platform people. A REAL platform. Not some hack...some childish
looking webpages that can't hold a candle to any desktop app a 12 year old
can code in .Net.

Damn......work with me people!

jim

 

[RobinS]

Don't hold back -- tell us how you REALLY feel. ;-)

RobinS.

 

[Aidy]

What's the problem here? All I want to do is write a desktop/webservices

app and stream it to the end user's desktop.

Flash?

 

[John Timney \(MVP\)]

Why can't you just write a winforms app and connect it to webservices?
Silverlight and Flash will both allow you to host in a browser and connect
to back end services. Even Ajax is something to think about.

Regards

John Timney (MVP)
http://www.johntimney.com
http://www.johntimney.com/blog

 

[jim]

Because it is crippled.

Try writing an antivirus scanner in a winform and hosting it in anything.
It won't happen without the end user having to go through steps (to get
around .Net "security") that will confound most end users.

You simply can't host truly powerful .Net apps that run as simply as
installable applications.

As for Ajax......please. Ajax is a poor excuse for the functionality we
already had in ActiveX. And, again, you are limited in the apps that you
can build using it.

jim

 

[jim]

Flash?

It's just another layer on top of HTML.

My gold standard is...."can you write an antivirus scanner with it?" You
can't write an antivirus scanner with Flash alone.

Flash is just another way (although better than most) to show fancy
pamphlets on the screen. You can't really use it for graphics manipulation
or large scale data entry (as in a user using a Flash application to enter
insurance forms at an insurance company - NOT as in a single person filling
out a single app). You can't really use it for useful stuff like running
apps similar to Word or Outlook - you know, the stuff we use to get real
work done everyday.

Flash looks cool. But, good looks only get you in the door.....then you
have to perform and Flash can't at the level I am talking about.

jim

 

[dnaguy]

Dreamweaver isn't to blame for your problem, nor is it a solution, but
since you've made yourself look like a bloviating ass posting to a
Dreamweaver forum, I'll bite on the troll-bait and reply.

Since you're so brilliant and have determined that none of the
technologies that exist today are acceptable, why are you volunteering
to be only a runner for coffee? Why don't you go and invest your
hundreds of millions of dollars into better technologies than have
been developed by Adobe, Microsoft, and other major companies? Why
don't you use your passion for this amazing anti-virus platform to
lead a team of open source developers to build this tool you
envision? Don't you realize how much money you could make if you did
this? Oh wait, nevermind. You must be too busy getting your "real
work" done in Outlook. Go sell crazy somewhere else. We're all
stocked up here.

 

[bangeye]

Who would trust anything you offered anyway? Or anything I offered?
Installing any true runtime off the net is just a craps game.
One I don't play.

ActiveX on the public net was just another name for Trojan.

Three out of one hundred people will have their identity compromised
in the next 2 years. Am I really going to install an "antivirus
scanner" off the net and risk my system to anonymous code? I think
not.

Leave the web as it is - information retrieval and submission - that's
it.

Build your complex network apps and distribute them to your circle of
associates only. Anything else is just begging for trouble.

~Bangeye~

 

[John Timney \(MVP\)]

Why don't you just write in C or C++ then. You chose the most appropriate
technology for the job at hand and theres nothing stopping you creating an
activeX using something like the standard widget toolkit in eclipse if you
have the technical skill.

Regards

John Timney (MVP)
http://www.johntimney.com
http://www.johntimney.com/blog

 

[jim]

Dreamweaver isn't to blame for your problem, nor is it a solution, but
since you've made yourself look like a bloviating ass posting to a
Dreamweaver forum, I'll bite on the troll-bait and reply.

Since you're so brilliant and have determined that none of the
technologies that exist today are acceptable, why are you volunteering
to be only a runner for coffee? Why don't you go and invest your
hundreds of millions of dollars into better technologies than have
been developed by Adobe, Microsoft, and other major companies?

While I don't actually have "hundreds of millions of dollars", I am
investing in a solution of sorts.

Why
don't you use your passion for this amazing anti-virus platform to
lead a team of open source developers to build this tool you
envision? Don't you realize how much money you could make if you did
this?

Yes, I do. And, yes, I am working on it. My "solution" is not a rewrite of
available technology but an enabling of activeX to provide the types of apps
of which I speak and desire to code.

As others have stated, security can be a big issue with activeX technology.
My solution addresses that without the need for dragging apps into the slow
hell that is HTML/CSS.

Oh wait, nevermind. You must be too busy getting your "real
work" done in Outlook. Go sell crazy somewhere else. We're all
stocked up here.

I'll agree with you there.....stocked up, and overflowing.

jim