Richard, To be perfectly honest the ability to publish to alternative runtimes was the deciding factor for us to initially look at OpenLaszlo. Having a language abstracted from it's runtime was/is very appealing as it (in theory) allows you to republish your applications on future platforms so long as the framework is ported, and the compiler supports it - being open source guarantees this is always a possibility.
However, I've since taken a long time to rethink that idea - and while it seems like a great idea (in theory), I'm not too sure about how desirable that may be in reality. Chances are if you're looking to migrate to another platform in the future it's to take advantage of a specific feature set - or it's out of necessity as the platform you're currently using is obsolete/unsupported. So, in the first case re-publishing your existing codebase to the new platform might actually be more headache than it's worth (ideas/concepts from LZX that don't easily translate to the new platform), and there could be huge gains (features, performance) to be had in re-architecting from scratch at that time. Regarding the second issue, if the Flash Platform and/or Flex disappears chances are there will be migration paths available as there will be far too many people requiring solutions to ignore. Also, OpenLaszlo only typically implements things that are possible on ALL targeted runtimes - basically targeting the lowest common denominator. Therefore platform specific features (binary sockets, camera/microphone access, etc) may not actually be implemented - leaving a reduced palette with which to build your applications. With OpenLaszlo you give up depth (features) for breadth (reach) - which actually sounds very similar to Ajax. I'm really not sure how OL is going to handle audio and video moving forward - especially with the Ajax deployment - possibly a SWF/Ajax hybrid? I'm also somewhat wondering what other runtimes it makes sense for OL to publish to - and what featues of the respective platforms get left behind? - Java: is this even realistic on the client today? Even in the mobile space developers are looking for alternatives (or fixes) to J2ME. - .NET: does it make sense to publish to this platform (Windows Forms) as XAML/WPF seems to be the focus moving forward on the MS client - XAML: seems to be a few years out, and by all reports so far it's missing a lot of what Flash does today. - the greatest client solution that has yet to be been invented... If you have a crystal ball now would be a good time to use it. ;-) The one thing that does bode well for OL is it's involvement in the WHAT-WG (I believe Adobe/Macromedia are also involved), the W3C web app working group and the OpenAjax projects with IBM, OpenWave, etc - all which could see LZX make some headway in how RIA apps are constructed. The issue is still, what is the target runtime for these apps? Current browsers/ajax? Nope. The greatest client solution that has yet to be invented... Again, anyone got a crystal ball? Sincerely, Bryan > I haven't used OL, but I'm surprised no one has mentioned > their support for alternate runtimes (eg. one markup > generating either AJAX or Flash). I would imagine that might > appeal to those for whom the non-open-source nature of the > Flash player is an issue, or those who have other concerns > about the player dependency. > > Thoughts? > > - Richard > -- Flexcoders Mailing List FAQ: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/files/flexcodersFAQ.txt Search Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
