On Nov 16, 2005, at 11:01 AM, Dan Shafer wrote:
So *if* -- and that's a big "if" -- the *only* advantages of Rev
over AJAX is the UI componentry, then Rev has essentially little or
no advantage.
Based on what I've seen of AJAX apps, it's not a small advantage.
But I should have expanded on the difference that I think really
matters:
Revolution -- data and code can be more easily stored on the user's
computer, during and between sessions.
AJAX -- applications can be used more freely without worrying about
the security of information on your hard drive.
For apps that don't require local storage, AJAX is a compelling
solution, and Rev's ability to erase the user's hard drive is a
serious liability.
For apps that require local storage, AJAX has no reasonable answer at
this time. It will be interesting to see what they do to address this
(if they do).
It's interesting that we freely download applications with full file
system access from web sites and run them, and there are few cases
where someone actually created a trojan application, but we are
paranoid to allow the same file system functionality within a browser-
based application.
In essence we currently have security through barrier-to-entry --
it's theoretically harder to write an application in C (or even
REALbasic) than it is to put up a web page.
But that isn't true, as we well know. Just as it is for benign
applications, it is far easier to put together a hostile application
in Revolution than it would be to write a similar application in
AJAX, even if AJAX had access to the file system. I'd bet "Good-bye,
World," a sample program to overwrite the user's hard drive file by
file, could be written in under 50 lines of code.
So if AJAX apps are secure but need local storage, and Rev apps have
local storage but need security, which will get what it needs first?
gc
_______________________________________________
use-revolution mailing list
[email protected]
Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription
preferences:
http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
