The users of the 500 workstations wouldn't have a problem with an exe being installed on their machine - most of them wouldn't have a clue what I was talking about. The problem was the network administrator (who has the keys to the door we'd have to get through to get the programming contract). HE is the one who objects to having anything loaded on the workstations.
His objections really center around maintenance since he doesn't want to have to "touch" 500 machines every time there is an upgrade. That is an understandable concern on his part and what I was looking for was a way to automatically distribute the code that would take (almost) no work on the end users part, AND be upgradeable simply (from the user's point of view).
The idea of a very simple stand-alone that could be launched from a web-server which would then "phone-home" to load stacks as needed was something I think I could "sell" to him if I could show that it was a) simple enough for an end user and b) would cause him any work. The other requirement I had to contend with was that users should be able to run the program from home just as easily. This is a no-brainer if the application is entirely Web/xHTML based but I don't downloading a small stand-alone would be that much of a burden either. One of the "problems" I have with this group is that they are a pretty sharp group of people that maybe can't always remember how dense some end users can be. I've written big complete applications that had to be used by people that couldn't spell G.E.D.! The user base I'm after this time is somewhat better but not much.
Why not use xHTML? I think even our newbies can answer this one. Make one little slip up in the page you send back and the whole screen gets screwed up! I have to concern myself with micro-managing every little aspect on the screen and remember state from page to page. RR handles a lot of this for me letting me concentrate on the application and what the user interacts with instead of the minutia (sp?) whipping a browser into submission. Yes, XUL/Mozilla/Firefox would help quite a bit but the NA wouldn't agree to install Firefox either. Throw into the mix the fact that I've got to have something that must be cross platform and RR looks even better (to me at least).
In reality, I only had to "snow" one guy to get to the next step in the process and that's what I was seeking advice on: how could I fool HIM so it didn't look like anything was getting installed. I appreciate all the advice and suggestions I got from this group. The speed and quality of response to problems/questions here is unlike anything I've ever seen!!!!
len morgan
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