Thanks for the feedback, Andu:
>> A quick survey of MetaCard developers, if you don't mind:
...
> But what do you need this for if I may ask?
I'm seeing a big shift away from desktop applications and onto the Web, and
wanted to get a feel for what others are doing with MC.
It seems that the three main ways MC can contribute to Web work are:
- CGI solutions
- Net-aware applications ("custom browsers")
- Web production tools
Historically, most of our work with MC has been designing desktop
applications, but in recent months the bulk of the work coming in has us
using JavaScript or Flash (or in the case of Flash 5, both together).
Since most ISPs only allow Perl-based CGIs, we're finding ourselves spending
less time with MetaCard than I would prefer. I'm working with my favorite
client on adding some net-savvy to his app, but I'd like to be working in MC
even more. JavaScript and Perl simply aren't as much fun. :)
So the biggest reason for finding out what others are doing with MC is
twofold:
- What are the opportunities for a RAD tool like MC in
a Browser-centric world?
- What untapped opportunities may still exist in the
world of desktop applications?
The breadth of what MetaCard delivers also makes it relatively difficult to
define. We can build almost anything for a client, but more and more they
seem to prefer that it take place inside of a browser window.
Given the relative newness of this Web fenzy, I suspect that the browser
will ultimately prove to be a transitional phase, a stepping stone on the
way to other things which allow more flexible user interfaces for both
content presentation (which is currently good on the Web) and data
manipulation (at which the Web sucks -- can you imagine using a
browser-based spreadsheet?).
There are probably several dozen categories of things MetaCard can do that
would really drive its value home to a variety of organizations. SETI and
Napster are two popular examples of distributed apps which conceivably could
have been written in MetaCard, and I suspect there are a few thousand more
waiting to be discovered.
A question in response to your post: Since you mentioned being able to
spend 95% of your time with MC and that most of your work is for the Web,
does that imply that you're building server-side MC CGIs? Or "custom
browsers" a la AOL?
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Media Corporation
Multimedia Design and Development for Mac, Windows, UNIX, and the Web
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