Personally, I'd rather see AIR thought of as a cross-platform Desktop application platform (like Visual Basic), than a method being marketed at web-developers building desktop apps (initial Adobe marketing, though it seems to be changing a bit, AIR can be so much more, ya know). When users install applications, they're generally aware that they could be doing evil things. When I download Adobe Lightroom, I know that I'm INSTALLING an application. Instead we have AIR that walks that fine line of not being a desktop app because of one-click web install, and developers are left looking elsewhere for desktop application development -- unless the limited functionality of AIR suits your specific needs, and it is just fine for some applications. Anyway, I'm hoping all that native C/C++ to Actionscript compiler stuff that Ted talked about on his blog (http://www.onflex.org/ted/2008/02/extending-adobe-flash-player-and-adobe.php), and has been discussed elsewhere comes to fruitation. Because having C/C++ compiled into Actionscript SWF execution could alleviate a lot of running of external programs, like fancy PDF generation, accessing Subversion, etc... (Yeah, I know someone could technically write a library in Actionscript to access Subversion, but so many exist already, and if I were writing some sort of tool, I'd probably try to use the command-line SVN client with some form of wrapper..)
Then again, I imagine that AIR eventually will expand into being a desktop development environment, with access to external libs and executables, etc. While I think the Merapi is great and cool idea (and may well be the only way to power-up AIR, I'm still not in heaven having the Java runtime installed. Couldn't they do something similar with a lighterweight runtime platform (Lua, at only 500k? I don't really know, just throwing out the question -- I've personally tinkered with Python and CherryPy doing something similar). If I wanted to go the route of relying on Java, I'd probably just use TrollTech's QT's Jambi for cross-platform application development. (Though, I'd rather use MXML and Actionscript for most of my front-end needs.) Anyway, not to knock the process behind Merapi, as anything will be quite welcome. OK, sorry to ramble. --- In [email protected], "Kevin Aebig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Well considering the consequences of offering fully web-based push button > installs as well as access to executing local processes, which might be a > case of having your cake and eating it too. > > > > Though I hope a method of dealing with this in a secure fashion pops up, > I'll make due without if need be simply to ensure my clients are safe to > install the runtime without Norton throwing a fit. > > > > !k > > > > _____ > > From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Dan Rolander > Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 10:40 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [flexcoders] Re: AIR QnA > > > > I really hope the Merapi project takes off. For me, the inability of > Air applications to launch external processes is a huge disappointment > and limits what I can do with it. >
