{"id":176,"date":"2007-04-05T09:45:39","date_gmt":"2007-04-05T08:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/?p=176"},"modified":"2007-04-05T09:45:39","modified_gmt":"2007-04-05T08:45:39","slug":"the-search-for-the-new-client-runtime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/176-the-search-for-the-new-client-runtime.html","title":{"rendered":"The search for the new client runtime"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some interesting posts recently about the connected client wars:<\/p>\n

Ray Ozzie interview from Knowledge@Wharton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Commentary from Ryan Stewart<\/a> – subscribe to his blog if this stuff interests you, and it should. <\/p>\n

Commentary from David Berlind<\/a><\/p>\n

Why a new client runtime? It’s because of certain desirables:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Designer freedom – think multimedia, effects, custom controls.<\/li>\n
  2. Zero deployment – It Just Works, not ardous setup routines with weird error messages.<\/li>\n
  3. Web storage – most data belongs in the cloud, it’s safer there.<\/li>\n
  4. Local storage – for offline use and performance.<\/li>\n
  5. Cross-platform – for all sorts of reasons: Apple resurgence, Linux desktop improving, inherent client agnosticism of the Web. Windows-only doesn’t cut it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I’d add, and this is a techie point, an XML UI. XML makes huge sense for defining a user interface. Think of the history here: in the beginning we had text (DOS etc). Then we got pixels (Windows API), supplemented by arcane ideas like dialog units to make it vaguely scaleable. Then we got layout managers – Java’s AWT and Swing. Fundamentally right but awkward to code. Now we combine XML and layout managers – easier to code, better for visual designers. The best yet.<\/p>\n

    I dont care as much about the language. Java, C#, JavaScript (ECMAScript 4.0, ActionScript 3.0) are all workable. Just-in-time compilation is important; but all of these have that.<\/p>\n

    Of course the new client runtime is an old client runtime. Flash, transmuted with Flex and Apollow. Microsoft .NET, transmuted with WPF and given some belated cross-platform appeal with WPF\/E. And not forgetting Mozilla XUL<\/a>, which ticks most of the boxes but lacks the marketing effort and tools that are making waves for Adobe and Microsoft.<\/p>\n

    In some ways this looks like a battle that is Adobe’s to lose. It has designer hearts and minds, runtime deployment, cross-platform all sewn up. That said, I really like WPF<\/a>; it has been mostly lost in the Vista fog but will emerge; maybe Mix07<\/a> will help (now sold out, apparently). Good WPF apps are amazing; and Microsoft has armies of .NET developers out there, and a great tool in Visual Studio – but stumbles on (5) above.<\/p>\n

    Watch this space.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Technorati tags: flex<\/a>, adobe<\/a>, microsoft<\/a>, wpf<\/a>, wpfe<\/a>, flash<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Some interesting posts recently about the connected client wars: Ray Ozzie interview from Knowledge@Wharton. Commentary from Ryan Stewart – subscribe to his blog if this stuff interests you, and it should. Commentary from David Berlind Why a new client runtime? It’s because of certain desirables: Designer freedom – think multimedia, effects, custom controls. Zero deployment – … Continue reading The search for the new client runtime<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}