Question: tools for business apps development

[Carlos Ribeiro]

On Wed, 08 Sep 2004 22:00:24 -0400, Peter Hansen <peter at engcorp.com> wrote:
> In addition, there is not yet a fully functional standard
> way of communicating between JavaScript and the server on
> the back end, short of doing page reloads.

Gmail and other similar applications almost solved this issue by using
a clever design. The webpage is divided into frames; one of the frames
is not visible, and holds the main script. The other frame is visible.
There are calls in the visible frames to the code in the hidden frame.
The hidden frame can also keep communicating with the server to update
fields.

For more information, check libgmail (written in Python). It's not as
hard as it seems, specially because a lot of the differences between
the browsers can be solved in a single place and conveniently reused.
 
> Suffice to say that while HTML+JavaScript can do the job,
> in principle, in practice it falls short and Flash is
> potentially a much more effective solution, at least for
> now and the near future.

I understand that some people really like Flash. It's nifty and
powerful. And the CSS+HTML+JavaScript combination is slow, tricky,
confusing, complex, etc. -- it's just asking for a redesign, but there
is way too much code written for it to happen in any dramatic fashion.
However, Flash is not an open standard, and that's a big problem. Who
can guarantee that the upcoming versions of the Flash plugin will keep
the same interface? It's a risk that you have to take into account.

-- 
Carlos Ribeiro
Consultoria em Projetos
blog: http://rascunhosrotos.blogspot.com
blog: http://pythonnotes.blogspot.com
mail: carribeiro at gmail.com
mail: carribeiro at yahoo.com