I hate to say it but Macromedia has created a direct data tunnel from client-side flash to server action acript which communicates with Java, Perl, CFM that allows for non-HTTP client-server communication. It's called Flash Remoting and it offers the grace of a flash GUI and the limited data-transfer of a dumb-terminal. Moreover there are more companies with similar products to be coming soon, but flash has the 98% install base. Flash client actionscripts can now directly communicate with server action script (thus your db, SOAP, EJBs etc. etc.), return just the requested data and display that data in the flash module WITHOUT RELOADING THE PAGE. Data transfer is tiny (compared to reloading a whole myYahoo page) so it's much faster than having to resend the page each time a user wants to change their hotel reservation dates or see a stock price. THIS IS A HUGE INNOVATION. and no I don't work for MM. I don't even use Flash. But non-http data-tunnels are a huge innovation.
Slashdot Mirror
I hate to say it but Macromedia has created a direct data tunnel from client-side flash to server action acript which communicates with Java, Perl, CFM that allows for non-HTTP client-server communication. It's called Flash Remoting and it offers the grace of a flash GUI and the limited data-transfer of a dumb-terminal. Moreover there are more companies with similar products to be coming soon, but flash has the 98% install base. Flash client actionscripts can now directly communicate with server action script (thus your db, SOAP, EJBs etc. etc.), return just the requested data and display that data in the flash module WITHOUT RELOADING THE PAGE. Data transfer is tiny (compared to reloading a whole myYahoo page) so it's much faster than having to resend the page each time a user wants to change their hotel reservation dates or see a stock price. THIS IS A HUGE INNOVATION. and no I don't work for MM. I don't even use Flash. But non-http data-tunnels are a huge innovation.