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If you want to build web applications that have a rich user experience, check out OpenLaszlo. It's based on Flash (which is ubiquitous) and it's open source.

This is a list of useful attributes for developers

Of course, it is: the secret behind the web's success is the developers and the fact that HTML and HTTP made it easy for them to deliver content and applications, while keeping them from doing the stupid things they used to do when programming applications for the desktop.

Even with technologies like DHTML and AJAX you're still layering application-like functionality on a page-based platform and it's awkward.

You're quite right that web technologies make it hard to layer application-like functionality on top of the web, and that's a good thing. It keeps people like you from treating the web as a desktop application delivery platform. You can either adapt to that, or you can get a different job.

Take a look at OpenLaszlo (http://openlaszlo.org/) for one example of an interesting open source, Flash-based Web application tool.

Yes, OpenLaszlo delivers typical Flash applications: applications that don't support cut-and-paste, ignore browser font sizes or preferences or screen resolution, don't provide accessibility, don't resize properly, and have numerous other usability problems.

Monopolies make me nervous too, but let's not confuse the existence of a monopoly with the quality of the technology in question.

I'm not; it is really the quality of the technology that is bad, and in two ways. First, Flash solves the wrong problem, and, in addition, it solves it badly. Flash is technically OK for little animations, which is what it was originally designed for. But Flash is a lousy web-based desktop application delivery platform; Java, RDP, VNC, and X11 would be far better for that and far easier to both develop for and use. But, in fact, it has turned out that the entire concept of a web-based desktop application delivery platform is flawed, which is why all those other platforms failed to catch on for mainstream web use as well.

Flash breaks just about everything about the web that made the web successful in the first place: open standards, text-based representations, user control over rendering, cut-and-paste, and screen scraping.

This is a list of useful attributes for developers and a very small number of power users, not a list of things that made the Web successful. Also, Flash supports cut and paste.

What made the Web successful was first, the ability to get information out to people easily; and later, the ability to get applications out to people easily (particularly e-commerce). In the first category Flash doesn't often come into play, though particularly with Flash 8's font smoothing it might make for more readable content. In the second category Flash is arguable better suited as a platform than HTML. Even with technologies like DHTML and AJAX you're still layering application-like functionality on a page-based platform and it's awkward. As an earlier poster pointed out, the fact that Flash is used for some bad sites and animations doesn't mean it's a bad platform. Take a look at OpenLaszlo (http://openlaszlo.org/) for one example of an interesting open source, Flash-based Web application tool.

Monopolies make me nervous too, but let's not confuse the existence of a monopoly with the quality of the technology in question.

I wonder if doing OpenLaszlo was a good idea for my project after all...
OpenLaszlo
Damn.

NeWS used PostScript throughout, as the imaging model (like DHTML), the scripting language (like JavaScript) and the data model (like XML). It was like AJAX in that it sent asynchronous messages over the network and used a dynamic scripting language on the client side (called the NeWS server), so it could implement local graphical user input feedback, and efficient application specific network protocols (using a binary encoding for PS data).

NeWS was much more consistent and better designed than AJAX's amalgamation of accidental technologies (DHTML, JavaScript, XML). NeWS also has many other advantages over AJAX, such an excellent imaging model, wysiwyg printer compatibility, shared modules, multithreading, synchronization, a programmable event distribution system, a fully developed Open Look gui toolkit, and graphical interface builder (HyperLook).

Writing NeWS PostScript is a lot like directly programming byte code for the Java or Flash virtual machines, which are both object oriented stack machines a lot like PostScript and Forth. At the time, we were well aware that many people had a hard time programming in PostScript directly (although I love it), so several interesting compilers were developed. Rehmi Post wrote a back-end to the Amsterdam Compiler Kit (CScript: C for yourself, PostScript for NeWS), Arthur van Hoff (who later wrote the Java compiler in Java) wrote PdB (Pretty darn Brilliant), a compiler that translated object oriented C into PostScript , which supported subclassing PostScript NeWS toolkit classes. Dave Singer at Schlumberger wrote LispScript, a Lisp to PostScript compiler, which allowed you to take full advantage of Common Lisp macros to develop PostScript programs!

OpenLaszlo is a high level XML/JavaScript based programming language, which compiles into Flash byte code that runs in the Flash player, and works exactly the same across all platform. The inner loops and hot-spots of Laszlo are hand written in "flasm" (Flash Assembler), as hand optimized alternatives to the compiled JavaScript code. (Laszlo is a JavaScript compiler that currently outputs SWF code, but will support other virtual machines in the future.) Flasm looks a lot like NeWS PostScript code, with all the stack comments. Laszlo is open source, so you can grab a copy of the LPS sources and look at "LaszloView.as" to see what I mean.

-Don

An OpenLaszlo app behaves essentially like an Ajax app; data requests are made for XML data (or media) in the background, and the user interface is presented as a seamless window-system style desktop app.

Simple Example

SVG has to compete with semantically void images.

No. SVG has to compete with Flash. And the widespread adoption of Flash by both the commercial and open source (e.g., OSFlash, OpenLaszlo etc.) communities was caused by the fact that Flash is a good platform to develop for, and has a consistent and ubiqutous Flash Player. It has nothing to do with semantics (and it never will) or scaling or anything else. No sane company would target a platform that doesn't even have good viewer. Very few developers will go through the pains of building a serious SVG application if nobody can use it.

Well ... we went through those pains, and probably will do so even more in the future. But we are doing this only with the hope that, one day, people will also be able to easily use our applications.

The OpenLaszlo project has a set of Rich Internet App components and a framework for building them, it compiles to Flash player format, however, not to DHTML at the moment. But if you are trying to make a cross platform browser-embedded app, this is probably the least work to have the same code run on Win/Mac/Linux browsers.

One of the coolest parts of the Java tool chain is ant, which uses XML instead of make's ridiculous syntax.

Ant has its limitations because it doesn't provide an actual scripting language. That's one of the problems that Jelly is attempting to address.

Another approach to programming with XML that works well is embedding a traditional programming language like JavaScript in XML text content, and expressions in XML attributes, like OpenLaszlo.

-Don

Brad Paisley
Make a Mistake
Written by - Brad Paisley
From - Mud On the Tires
You over think things

You say what if we're not meant to be
Well you know what so what
Make a mistake with me

Nobody goes through this life and does
Everything perfectly
We're all gonna fail so you might as well
Make a mistake with me

Sometimes, baby, when we take
A chance that has this much at stake
We look back and in hindsight
What seemed wrong looks more like right

So I say worst case we'll be left with
Lots of good memories
This chance we have well it's worth that
So make a mistake with me

I'm tellin' you the right thing to do
Is make a mistake
Make a mistake
Make a mistake with me

"AJAX helps because there was a set of desktop applications that could not formerly be made into equivalent web applications"

Rubbish. For a long time now developers have been able to create rich desktop-style apps using Flash. Apps that are far richer and easier to build than equivalent AJAX apps. Oh, and they work across all browsers, and don't require testing to make sure.

Maybe now that the mainstream Developer Massiv are finally clueing up that they can build apps that don't need page reloads they'll finally get what many of us were loving about Flash all those years ago. Gosh it took awhile. http://www.openlaszlo.org/

I said they were supportive. Discussions on mailing lists, blog entries, that sort of thing. Encouraging.

Please note that Macromedia is being supportive to their own developer community. Also every tool (open source or not) that has a chance to provide added value to their own platform while not being a competitive threat to their own product line is likely to get some (little) support as well. That does not even compare to what other companies do, by really embracing the free software / open source movement. IBM offered a couple of dozzens of programs to the open source community (list) one of them being an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Laszlo. Sun open sourced Star Office, Netbeans and will soon open source Solaris. Laszlo Systems open sourced their RIA Platform (OpenLaszlo). These and others are companies being supportive to the open source community. Macromedia however is not one of these companies. On a greed scale they would be somewhere very close to Microsoft.

Flash (which, btw, costs half of what you said)

I don't know where you live but in Germany the half cripple Macromedia Flash MX 2004 costs 694.84 euro (=855.926701 US$) and the full Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 costs 973.24 euro (=1,198.868952 US$).

If you don't like it -- don't buy it.

You can bet I won't. I already told about OpenLaszlo. That is what I would use, should I ever consider writing Flash applications again. For now I am a lot better off using SVG and JavaScript for the open source projects to which I contribute. SVG and JavaScript are both open standards while Macromedia's technologies are proprietary. Supporting Macromedia's technologies would help Macromedia more than anybody else, and would surely hurt web standards and interoperability.

I said they were supportive. Discussions on mailing lists, blog entries, that sort of thing. Encouraging.

Please note that Macromedia is being supportive to their own developer community. Also every tool (open source or not) that has a chance to provide added value to their own platform while not being a competitive threat to their own product line is likely to get some (little) support as well. That does not even compare to what other companies do, by really embracing the free software / open source movement. IBM offered a couple of dozzens of programs to the open source community (list) one of them being an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Laszlo. Sun open sourced Star Office, Netbeans and will soon open source Solaris. Laszlo Systems open sourced their RIA Platform (OpenLaszlo). These and others are companies being supportive to the open source community. Macromedia however is not one of these companies. On a greed scale they would be somewhere very close to Microsoft.

Flash (which, btw, costs half of what you said)

I don't know where you live but in Germany the half cripple Macromedia Flash MX 2004 costs 694.84 euro (=855.926701 US$) and the full Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 costs 973.24 euro (=1,198.868952 US$).

If you don't like it -- don't buy it.

You can bet I won't. I already told about OpenLaszlo. That is what I would use, should I ever consider writing Flash applications again. For now I am a lot better off using SVG and JavaScript for the open source projects to which I contribute. SVG and JavaScript are both open standards while Macromedia's technologies are proprietary. Supporting Macromedia's technologies would help Macromedia more than anybody else, and would surely hurt web standards and interoperability.

Macromedia announced that it is joining the Eclipse Foundation and plans to deliver a next-generation rich Internet application (RIA) development tool code-named Zorn based on the popular open-source IDE."

I suppose you could wait for that. Or you could be using Eclipse today to build rich Internet apps to be delivered via Flash by getting into OpenLaszlo.

OpenLaszlo is here today, it's free, it's open source (CPL), and there's a free IDE on the Eclipse platform courtesy of IBM.

But, you know, if you'd rather wait an indefinite amount of time and pay Adobe/Macromedia an unspecified amount of money to get essentially the same stuff, "Zorn" is probably just what you've been waiting for...

Macromedia announced that it is joining the Eclipse Foundation and plans to deliver a next-generation rich Internet application (RIA) development tool code-named Zorn based on the popular open-source IDE."

I suppose you could wait for that. Or you could be using Eclipse today to build rich Internet apps to be delivered via Flash by getting into OpenLaszlo.

OpenLaszlo is here today, it's free, it's open source (CPL), and there's a free IDE on the Eclipse platform courtesy of IBM.

But, you know, if you'd rather wait an indefinite amount of time and pay Adobe/Macromedia an unspecified amount of money to get essentially the same stuff, "Zorn" is probably just what you've been waiting for...

http://openlaszlo.org/ Must be difficult with Laszlo jumping them on flex

http://openlaszlo.org/

Laszlo used to cost about ten thousand dollars per license, but it is now fully open source and free. Flex costs more than ten thousand dollars per server license, and has restrictions on how you can modify and redistribute Flex components.

Macromedia has a spotty track record supporting their server software over the long haul, and now that Adobe's bought them, Flex is in Flux. Laszlo is here to stay because it's available now, free and open source, and you're not restricted in how you can modify and reuse Laszlo and its components.

Flex is a lot like Laszlo, because Flex is Macromedia's imitation of Laszlo, but Flex is intended to lock you into Flash instead of giving you independence from it.

The most important difference between Laszlo and Flex, is that Laszlo is not tied to Flash, it "just happens to" use it right now, because that's the most practical target platform at this point in history. Laszlo is a high level JavaScript/XML based language which currently targets the Flash player as its initial platform, with more to come.

Laszlo abstracts away Flash dependencies, so it will target other runtimes than Flash in the future, as they mature and shake out: Java (Rhino/Java2D), C# (CLR, GDI+, Avalon), C++ (SpiderMonkey, CGI+, Quartz, Cairo, AGL), SVG (Adobe, Batik, Firefox), DHTML (web browsers, JavaScript, AJAX).

But right now Flash rules, and Laszlo is the best way to develop rich web applications that run on Flash.

One really interesting possible target platform for Laslo is an open source Flash player, that can easily be integrated into applications and games, and uses OpenGL with hardware accellerated rendering.

-Don

OpenLaszlo generates SWF movies that play in MM's "Flash" player, and MM has nothing to do with OL. And there are other players, and many other cross-format tools, for using SWF, that have nothing to to with MM. And, as another post noted, the format's spec is published. That's pretty open.

Nice try - are you saying that I'm lying? Try your faulty brain out on the ad. I won't divulge the critic, out of unilateral respect, but I will quote the opening line of their OSS demand: " Why in the hell would you force someone to download and install software just to view a web site?".

As for the openness, OpenLaszlo is a language/environment completely independent of Macromedia for producing SWF movies that play in MM's "Flash" player. And, as you yourself concede, there are open source players for SWFs. That's pretty open.

So, basically, you're wrong. And you're obnoxious, calling me a liar, especially when I'm not. Which means that the basic premise of my post, to persuade politely, is completely lost on an obnoxious jerk like you. So, I'll spell it out: in the interests of furthering OSS, DO NOT CONTACT BORLAND. You're completely incompetent do do anything but generate opposition.

I've yet to see a useful Flash MDI or desktop type application (like the http://openlaszlo.org/ demos) that was an improvement over a cleverly implemented HTML/javascript type application doing the same thing.

I suspose part of the problem is that the platform (Flash MX 2004 or whatever) doesn't have many useful IDE type tools for more serious development. Perhaps this OpenLaszlo will help, but I still think it's a mistake to implement anything more than a gimmiky or widgety type program with Flash. It never feels like a decent app!

Or it's free replacement.

http://www.openlaszlo.org/

And with either a full-screen browser or a stand-alone Flash player. One can get the Pointcast look. The hardest part isn't all that, but the value-add. That's why the "$50 TV tuned to CNN/MSNBC" joke got such a laugh, because it's spot on about what's important.

www.openlaszlo.org has a platform for writing apps embedded in the browser, which runs on IE, Firefox, Safari, Linux, anything which supports the Flash plugin.

Yes, it compiles to the Flash virtual machine now, but it is being ported to other runtimes, and will probably be the standard rich internet app language eventually.

http://www.openlaszlo.org/ Lazlo recently made tis product open source. The language is almost XAML and generates flash content so you already have a thin client installed almost everywhere.