Re: Delphi - desktop, Web, or USB?

Steve Thackery wrote:
I've argued that Win32/64 has a long future, and nobody other than
CodeGear has a credible RAD tool for it. I said that .Net ISN'T always
the answer, and that Win32 is - and will remain - a very viable
platform. Therefore CodeGear ought to "leverage" (ugh) this unique
selling point and market the hell out of it.

FTR, I do think that Win32/64 and .NET will have their place in the future.

The thing is, they all have to be hosted in a browser, and that means
the inevitable "lowest common denominator" user interface.

The LCD UI is getting pretty darn good IMO. Check out ExtJS.com if you
want a look at my favorite heavyweight javascript library.

Either that, or they run as separate Java programs, again with the usual
hideous interface.

Java interfaces are pretty darn good too. :)

I've used both, and had some fun with the various Google bits and bobs,
and although they will get the job done, they are annoyingly slow at
times, and have a distinctly clunky (almost Windows 3.1) look and feel
to them.

We, as developers, I believe are hyper sensitive to these kinds of
things. Most end users do not care or even notice.

The richest, slickest user interface is still to be had when
using a real OS such as Vista or Mac OSX. At least, that is my
observation.

Sure, but there are disadvantages to that approach as well.

I'd like to explore and understand this a bit further. The implication
of this line of argument is that the multiple gigabytes of Vista and Mac
OSX are completely unnecessary - all you need is a Web browser and an
ultra-light kernel to host it on - something to look after the screen,
keyboard and mouse clicks.

I wouldn't go to that extreme; there are still some applications,
complex enough to require all the things in a modern OS. And as
GrandmasterB rapped, something has to run these web applications as well. :)

Everything else can be done from within the
browser, using Java to provide the programmatic stuff (or use some
server-side processing), and Flash or Silverlight for the UI.

Don't even have to go as heavy weight as Flash or Silverlight. An
amazing amount of functionality can be built using Javascript within the
browser itself. Javascript is a pretty capable language if you dig a
bit deeper.

Presumably you could make an Office 2007 clone like this? Or a
Photoshop look- and work-alike? A Windows Media Player replacement?

With Flash and Silverlight, I think we're going to get really close to that.

That seems hard to believe. Have Microsoft and Apple (and the Linux
crowd) made a dreadful mistake and written tens of millions of lines of
code that aren't actually needed? When all they needed to do was write
a browser and a lightweight kernel to generate the screen display and
catch the key strokes?

Not a mistake, it's just evolution of systems and the cyclical swing of
heavy server/thin client to thin server/heavy client, etc. Tides roll
in, and they roll back out.

Something doesn't add up. I'm puzzled. Just how much of the 25GB of
software on my hard disk can be ditched and delivered through IE and a
Java engine?

For a developer, there is less than the average home user. Most home
users surf the web, read/write email and do light office work. All that
stuff can be done online, in the browser. Also, from a collaboration
perspective the online apps work much better.

I was just looking at gliffy.com as a visio replacement for myself today...

Just how realistic is it to run an application like Word
2007, or Photoshop, from a USB stick on any computer you happen to be
near, without touching the registry or "installing" anything?

Very realistic. I have Open Office running off my USB drive. I have
FileZilla, Thunderbird and Notepad++ as well. I could have Firefox, but
don't really need it since I use del.icio.us for bookmarking. Check out
www.portableapps.com, or anything regarding U3. Tons of things are
available already.

Delphi is perfectly suited to eliminate all that unnecessary coupling to
the Windows OS and make installations simple unzips. Use a nice
embedded database (I like NexusDB, but you can use DBISAM, SQLite, etc)
and you've got everything you need to build sophisticated applications
especially if you leverage synchronization/"the briefcase model" or even
webservices.

Clearly I don't understand all the issues, but I think the discussion is
valuable. Was the all-singing all-dancing OS model - as in Windows, OSX
and Unix - a dreadful mistake? Are Web-hosted applications going to
make serious inroads into the domain of the traditional Windows desktop
applications? Can we realistically carry our applications around with
us on a USB stick?

Not a mistake, but born from an older model of what is emerging now.
From a time that was less connected than we are today. We now have fast
broadband speeds and ridiculously inexpensive and small flash memory
storage capabilities. There is no reason not to leverage that.

Maybe by getting some insights into these areas we can identify where we
think Delphi could develop and flourish.

Make it support OSX and you've got a terrific USB application
development tool. Plug into Windows or a Mac and run your application
provided that they have a binary compatible data format.

--
Brian Moelk
Brain Endeavor LLC
bmoelk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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