Is Adobe AIR the right direction for desktop programming?
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It seems that Adobe AIR is a pretty hot topic lately. I like the idea of having a universal runtime to run a desktop application anywhere no matter of OS. What I don't like is AIR uses web programming tool to do that. After all, it's a desktop application not a web one. I am just wondering if AIR is really the right direction for desktop programming.
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It seems that Adobe AIR is a pretty hot topic lately. I like the idea of having a universal runtime to run a desktop application anywhere no matter of OS. What I don't like is AIR uses web programming tool to do that. After all, it's a desktop application not a web one. I am just wondering if AIR is really the right direction for desktop programming.
Meh. We've had well over a decade of slow, ugly WORA desktop apps written in Java. If Flash Javascript AIR gets us fast, pretty replacements then i'm all for it. :rolleyes:
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'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
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It seems that Adobe AIR is a pretty hot topic lately. I like the idea of having a universal runtime to run a desktop application anywhere no matter of OS. What I don't like is AIR uses web programming tool to do that. After all, it's a desktop application not a web one. I am just wondering if AIR is really the right direction for desktop programming.
I personally would say no, but I'm obviously biased. It lets you program a very specific type of "application", but then restricts you in many ways from going beyond that. For any *real* desktop app, like Maya, Photoshop, CAD, IDEs, development add ons, 2D drawing/sketching, dtp, etc, it's not (IMHO) going to fit the bill.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
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It seems that Adobe AIR is a pretty hot topic lately. I like the idea of having a universal runtime to run a desktop application anywhere no matter of OS. What I don't like is AIR uses web programming tool to do that. After all, it's a desktop application not a web one. I am just wondering if AIR is really the right direction for desktop programming.
Is it not rather the future of cloud based apps? I mean Java has essentially been the universal runtime you are talking about for years... and it is awesome for somethings, crap for others. From what I know of AIR, it is a bridge between the benefits of local and the benefits of hosted solutions. Scrap that, i was thinking about something different. Although eventually i think the Air product will be closer to what cloud based applications are then what the current model is.
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modified on Saturday, April 19, 2008 4:50 AM
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I personally would say no, but I'm obviously biased. It lets you program a very specific type of "application", but then restricts you in many ways from going beyond that. For any *real* desktop app, like Maya, Photoshop, CAD, IDEs, development add ons, 2D drawing/sketching, dtp, etc, it's not (IMHO) going to fit the bill.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
Two words: Process control. Nothing, but nothing beats a native application at process control. When it absolutely, positively has to predictably manage resources (CPU, memory, hardware) consistently over the long term, a native application wins every time.
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
Two words: Process control. Nothing, but nothing beats a native application at process control. When it absolutely, positively has to predictably manage resources (CPU, memory, hardware) consistently over the long term, a native application wins every time.
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^]Yeah I'm learning that. We have a couple of apps that run on our servers that connect to third party data feeds. Unfortunately the API provided by these folks are in Java, but the apps have to run 24/7 and process as much as data as they can (I'd say they run "real-time", but that's just not accurate) as fast as they can. And we've had *nothing* but problems keeping them running - I don't know how much is the fault of running in a VM-like system like Java or how much is crappy third party programming, but damn it's a PITA. One of the programs has to be shutdown every 12 hours (other wise it leaks memory like a sieve), the other has to be babysat because it locks up at completely random times, or just doesn't process data any more. Maybe I have to expend a little more effort controlling memory allocation in a native app, but at least I have a fighting chance of understanding what's going on and how to fix it.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
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Yeah I'm learning that. We have a couple of apps that run on our servers that connect to third party data feeds. Unfortunately the API provided by these folks are in Java, but the apps have to run 24/7 and process as much as data as they can (I'd say they run "real-time", but that's just not accurate) as fast as they can. And we've had *nothing* but problems keeping them running - I don't know how much is the fault of running in a VM-like system like Java or how much is crappy third party programming, but damn it's a PITA. One of the programs has to be shutdown every 12 hours (other wise it leaks memory like a sieve), the other has to be babysat because it locks up at completely random times, or just doesn't process data any more. Maybe I have to expend a little more effort controlling memory allocation in a native app, but at least I have a fighting chance of understanding what's going on and how to fix it.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
Our applications run printing machinery. Some of our customers run their equipment 24/7. The five minutes required to reboot, restart the application, and get their press back up to speed represents a noticeable amount of downtime to them. I've occasionally spent days looking for problems where my part of the application was leaking a few handles every hour or so. We have enough issues as it is dealing with the Windows memory allocation mechanism, without layering a runtime and a garbage collector on top of it. Finally, an environment that's optimized for web applications and user-scale response times isn't tuned for near-real-time response. You notice this especially when some runtime mechanism (I'm talking to you GC) can decide to wake up and steal the CPU for 2-3 seconds. In that time, we've printed 50 feet of paper. We're monitoring paper position to accuracies of 1/1200th of an inch, placing drops at 600 dpi that are less than 10 picoliters of ink. Even with all of the fancy digital and analog hardware helping us do this, we still need to respond to events in a timely fashion. The nanny environments like Java and .NET simply don't support that.
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
Two words: Process control. Nothing, but nothing beats a native application at process control. When it absolutely, positively has to predictably manage resources (CPU, memory, hardware) consistently over the long term, a native application wins every time.
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
It seems that Adobe AIR is a pretty hot topic lately. I like the idea of having a universal runtime to run a desktop application anywhere no matter of OS. What I don't like is AIR uses web programming tool to do that. After all, it's a desktop application not a web one. I am just wondering if AIR is really the right direction for desktop programming.
Kinda, but I prefer Prism. All the benifits of AIR without programming.
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