I just wanted to mention, as I think that external interface is one of those things that won't work with IEMac, that one of Laszlo's most promising niche's is educational software. The reason I highlight this is that I think it should be a pretty high goal of Laszlo that any of these capabilities that can't work with IEMac are somehow only optional. So that even if it takes more work to get the app to work with IEMac that it's not taken away from being a possibility. When I last asked the fellow who maintains the server that we use, he said that it looked like 30% of our users were still using IEMac.
It's pretty tempting to discard IEMac, but when you look at how Laszlo is a best of breed for educational applications. I think it still is worth supporting.
Here are some of the reasons Laszlo is a best choice for educational software, even better than flash, flex or ajax and will remain that way for the forseeable future.
The flash player will maintain an edge over ajax applications in the forseeable future both because of IEMac and with sound always a consideration for educational apps.
Lzx has the advantage over flash of being easier for folk to learn and being more similar to html.
Lzx also has the advantage over flash of helping to tame the chaos of 46 ways to do anything in flash, so that when you have students and grad students coming in and out of a project, you don't get quite the same number of style conflicts.
It also has the advantage over flash of allowing decent version control which becomes even more important with the constant person shuffle.
It has the advantage over flex and flash of being open source which is really helpfull for educational software, given the way that educational software and institutions are funded and staffed. It seems like there is always a conflict among teachers and students over which version of what they are using to author.
I know educational software isn't a big money niche, but it's a favorite niche of mine and I'd look forward to the day when I can create a lz front end to something like moodle. I don't know of a lot of folk using lzx for educational software yet, but I really do see it as likely in the near future.
This whole post is probably unnecessary, but I really wanted to state it as something to keep in mind.
Thanks for everything you are continuing to do,
-Cort
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