[fpc-pascal] Creating FPC enabled websites

Prince Riley wmarketing3 at gmail.com
Thu Mar 5 03:09:08 CET 2009


On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 1:33 AM, Michael Van Canneyt
<michael at freepascal.org>wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, 3 Mar 2009, Prince Riley wrote:
>
> > Joost
> >
> > Reading the responses on this discussion thread, it appears the
> 'religious
> > war' you mentioned in your prior post was unavoidable.
> >
> > Not to add any fuel to the warring opinions I'd like answer  a comment
> you
> > made in response to my response.
> >
> > The recent push to make web applications (not simply web browsing)
> perform
> > more like desktop  applications has been the primary driver behind the
> Web
> > 2.0 and the improved Javascript engines by Google and the Mozilla people.
> > They have their own commercial motivations for those improvements, the
> > primary driver has been the software application developers who want web
> > apps to perform like desktop ones.
> >
> > While several traditional "desktop" application scenarios do still exists
> > that will likely always run directly on the O/S without a web client
> front
> > end, the direction of most major software application development efforts
> > I've witnessed in the past three years have all targeted migrating the
> > desktop GUI over to a web browser. Others in the discussion thread have
> > referenced several reasons for this shift already, but the trends
> continue
> > to follow the idea of pushing as much of the presentation and processing
> > layers onto the remote web browser.
> >
> > Finally, respectfully I must disagree with your comments that the
> > applications deployment approach " is only true for small
> > applets used by a broad public. " ignores the TOC and other economies of
> > scale afforded by portable web applications. Scott Trade and TD
> Ameritrade
> > are just two of several examples where sophisticated trading desk and
> > customer centric web-based applications are running on 100,000s of web
> > browsers. Just a few years ago these same applications were shipped  to
> > clients and had to be installed and run on their desktop PCs.
>
> Well, drop by and I'll prove to you - hands down - that what our clients
> need
> simply cannot be done by web applications, because they cannot interact
> with
> the local desktop.




> Can your web-app burn a CD-ROM ? Does it have access to
> a smartcard reader ? Can it start and control MS-Word ? Can you drop files
> on it to send to the server ?


For the sake of clarification let me ask you if its your position that
web-apps are limited due to the fact that they are not hosted on a systems
H/D and loaded into memory by the O/S in response to a mouse click or a
keyboard type in? Is the distinction you are making here between a web-app
and a desktop (installed application) based on your understanding that a
web-app interface cannot drive and launch local installed hardware and
software.? If that's your presumption, and I hope I am mistaken in saying
that it is, then let me answer affirmatively .. to each question.. YES ,
they can.

Leaving aside the security implications and the issue of specific hardware
capability, Sun Microsystems Java Platform, especially its HotSpot
installer/environment can do nearly all the things you have mentioned with
very few exceptions.

Likewise, with some modifications, the new JavaScript engines and the
applications being written and released by Mozilla, Google, Amazon, to run
on them can all but replace the entire MS Office Suite. In less than two
years, the entire Win32 GUI and service API will be a web-application based
entirely on thee .NET framework ( just download Windows 7).

Five years ago, Steve Ballmer  even announced that the future architecture
of the Windows desktop application and O/S system platform would be to
migrate toward  web-hosted applications consisting of web-deployed
components.

He was later even more clear on this point stating that future releases of
the Windows OS and application suite would not be pre-installed on new
desktop PCs, but provided via the web on SOA as leased-licensed products. In
essence, the desktop machines workhorse applications with notable few
exceptions would all be web-apps.

Python, another web-app language, can run MS Office applications using
COM/DCOM. without any drag, drop, or click. So  unless I am missing the
point you are making entirely, and mistaken about the scenarios you mention
here, the answer to your questions are yes and yes.

However. if you asking whether a web app can start a CD burning  program
(like Nero) on a remote user machine? The answer is absolutely yes. But can
a web-app physically open the CD tray and insert the CD-RW media .. no, but
neither can any desktop application or any C/Sapplication.

Can a web-app take the data from a smart card reader attached to the system
.. again yes it's not a problem whatsoever.. done all day, every day, all
over the world. Can a web-app physically put a Smart card into a reader ..
no, it can't; but neither can a desktop application or any C/S application.

Can a web-app transparently without user intervention start a  MS-Word
application, open files, and do editing on a file .. yes again. In fact,
this is done now with such regularity its almost trivial. If you haven't
seen such web-apps you need only take a look at the archives on the
Microsoft knowledge base for articles on Automation and on DCOM.

At one point there was such a substantial amount of these capabilities
included into the MS Windows OS, and built directly into the windows desktop
explorer and the Internet Explorer to support application automation that it
created a security nightmare few sysadmins realized or appreciated.

Finally, you asked ...


And finally: can these apps work offline with NO internet connection ?
I don't think so.

The answer to your question whether a web-app can work without a Internet
(please insert the word "network" here) connection is no but can a C/S
application work without a network connection .. same answer .. no.


> I thought not, unless maybe you develop in Java,
> and then you are back in C/S...
>
> And finally: can these apps work offline with NO internet connection ?
> I don't think so.
>
> Web apps: by all means, but not for every possible scenario...
>
> Michael.
> _______________________________________________
> fpc-pascal maillist  -  fpc-pascal at lists.freepascal.org
> http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
>
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