Hi again--left one link off the list of things that were discussed last night: http://www.laszlosystems.com
Laszlo is a "presentation server" (which is how people are referring to things like Flex) that generates Rich Internet Application (RIA) interfaces. Laszlo isn't as robust or complete as Flex, and the syntax seems a big klunky to me personally, but it's been around for a while and it's now open source and free to use in production systems. The more the merrier in the RIA space, I say! I'll be more than happy to dance on HTML's grave. ;-) The other language that's been in the press recently is XAML, which is what Microsoft's Longhorn OS will have built into it (at least that's what they're saying at this point--it doesn't come out until 2006). There's a tool available now, however, that uses the XAML spec that MS has released, and the tool is called Xamlon: http://xamlon.com/ Big drawback at this point: from what I read on their site and in a story on news.com, it's Windows only and IE only. Boo. Advantage: you can use XAML to write an app and that same app will run either in the browser or as a Windows program (.exe file). And of course you'll want to check out Flex: http://www.macromedia.com/software/flex/ As Joe mentioned at the meeting last night, Macromedia announced that they are making Flex and FlexBuilder licenses available free for non-commercial/non-institutional use. Basically this means if you're not using Flex to sell something or run apps that are used by your company or organization (i.e. we couldn't build the CFUG site in Flex ...), then it's free. I already have plans for a major overhaul to my personal site! Keep an eye on the RIA space--it's getting interesting, and you have some very cool capabilities that just don't exist with HTML alone. Matt -- Matt Woodward [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.mattwoodward.com ---------------------------------------------------------- To post, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: http://www.dfwcfug.org/form_MemberUnsubscribe.cfm To subscribe: http://www.dfwcfug.org/form_MemberRegistration.cfm
