> Unfortunately, that is not true of all environments. Many large > organizations such as governments and big corporations will not allow > their users to install ANY plugins to their browsers for security > reasons. A team of testers has to examine every piece of software > installed on the network and approve it. Getting variances for a > particular application is beyond most people's level of bureaucratic > tolerance. And since providing their employees access to sites like > Youtube is pretty low on these organizations' radar, a Flash player is > not something that it is easy to get passed as an accepted piece of > software unless they have purchased other software that requires it. > And THAT is unlikely because developing software for large > organizations that requires Flash causes this major friction point for > sales. For Flash, it is a vicious circle. > > Given how much development is paid for by large organizations, I think > it unlikely any RIA technology will become dominant unless it is > embedded in something else. That means SilverLight embedded in the > browser with the most market share; JavaFX embedded in the JRE since > many of these organizations see Java as mission critical; or Ajax, > support for which is already embedded into existing browsers. Of > these, Ajax is the only technology that is currently generally > available within these large organizations. > > Just thought I'd offer another perspective.
Full ack. And some other points: - Flash is proprietary. I don't complain about the "Flash isn't OS issue" but it introduces dependencies we should avoid. - As with better javascript interpreters (as shall come with new Firefox) rendering time shall increase. BTW: 300 ms on client side is no problem. If it slowed down every request on server it would be... - IIRC Flash started as interpreted, too. Java is kind of interpreted. Both are (partially) precompiled. Why shouldn't javascript go the same way? - With the current Ajax/CForms solution we have a fallback option for non javascript-capable browsers and even for non HTML. Cocoon is still an XML-publishing-system so we are neither bound to HTML/browsers nor HTTP (what about the refactorings of that ServletRequest thingie?) Just my four dashes... Florian
