> >I though we ruled out the fat client solution several years ago.
> Microsoft
> >is re-releasing the Client-Server paradigm, and the fans are cheering!
>
>
> I'm afraid you are a little off-mark. This thread was about Windows DNA
> and *thin* client development using IE5, DHTML, RDS and other
> MicrsoSoft technologies.
I don't consider the DNA-way of building "thin"-clients produces real
thin-clients. Okay, they're thinner than for example applications and
applets, but they produce clients that behave curiously much like
Client/Server-clients. These applications typically works in this way: get
data from server (RDS), interact with user (DHTML, Data Islands), process
data in accordance to some business rules (Data Islands, DOM), return data
to server for update (RDS again).
Of course, the DNA/RDS/Data Islands-architecture produces great
user-interfaces. And hopefully the developer realizes he/she's really
building a fat-client-system. Differens is that you download the code on
request (as if you were downloading an applet, hopefully takes a bit shorter
time though :).
What if the user has a different version of Internet Explorer that behaves
differently than the one you built the system for. Okay, the _best_ thing
that can happen is that the system won't work. If you're really unlucky the
system will work anyway but will behave incorrectly in accordance to your
business rules, and produce inconsistent data. The same thing will happen if
Internet Explorer caches some pages, and don't cache others. Then you've got
a real mess.
These are the problems that occured when working in the
Client/Server-paradigm, I'm really sad that Microsoft has reintroduced this
paradigm. And even worse is that they're marketing it as a
thin-client-architecture (I were not aware that they did, but it seems so
from your mail).
I say: Never trust a client! :)
> But since you raise the fat client issue, Win2000 has a revamped
> Installer that makes automatic network installation, repair and
> upgrade of client apps so easy and versatile it takes away a lot of
> the reasons to develop so called Java thin-clients -- a Java applet
> may be one of the fattest clients you can find, with above 20 MB RAM
> usage including the browser, and well above of 1 MB of
> downloadable code each time the client starts.
>
> Anybody who deploys Java applets must be considering several schemes
> to install part of the client in the user's workstation, be it CAB files,
> PVCj or Marimba/Castanet. Windows 2000 Installer is just that.
The Java-applet is a "pretty fat"-client solution as well. And the
Marimba/Castanet, Weblogic ZAC (Zero Administration Client), Windows 2000
Installer is a great way of handling the administrational overhead
associated with the fat-client solution.
To be fair I don't consider the Java Applet to be a good way of producing
easy-maintenance applications either.
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