[thelist] Macromedia & "Rich Internet Applications"

[Erik Mattheis]

On Friday, March 14, 2003, at 07:45 AM, Tom Dell'Aringa wrote:
> I've read through a bit of MM site explaining the idea. I've looked
> at the examples they built, read about emerils.com and e-trade. In
> the end, I'm failing to see what the big benefits here are vs. other
> approaches - other than you use a MM suite of products so they get
> the money intead.

 From my experience I posted here yesterday, the new MM site is not yet 
a good example use of their products.

But the MM site is huge, so I think I'm correct in stating that their 
largest sin is being over ambitious.

And Tom, I also think I'm correct in stating your greatest sin is 
criticizing a technology you don't know about: something you ironically 
admit before your long criticism. So, I'll yet again tale a few minutes 
to clear up some misconceptions as I _know_ a lot of people here could 
make better websites by using MM's stuff ... as the only similar 
alternative is Java Applets which come with the same problems, plus 
unique ones of their own ...

(Won't respond to nonsense statements like "Getting to market faster is 
not a competitive advantage")

> - Increasing the Number of Successful End-User Transactions. As if
> you couldn't do this otherwise with good design and architecture.

 From my experience this is true ... I don't have hard numbers, but a 
project I was on last summer which made a Flash version of a product 
configuration tool increased web orders from 30-40 in a good month to 
typically over 70 a day.

> They don't easily integrate into my
> environment if I have a staff of hand coders who don't want to use MM
> products, and we have J2EE backend folks using WebSphere or some
> other product.

Can these developers output their data in XML? If so, you can skip the 
MM backend and get similar results on the front-end.

> Macromedia MX helps you maximize the productivity of all your
> developers—[...]

> Blah blah blah my tools are better than yours blah blah blah.
> Marketing not quantifiable.

I think you're misunderstanding what's being spoken of here: Not mainly 
that the language is better The MM products have "Extentions" that 
allow coders to make widget- type things that can be used by designers 
thereby separating the work ... IE, a designer can drop something that 
a coder has made into Dreamweaver that will have the code needed to 
make the page integrate with the backend, or include appropriate 
JavaScript ... and similar things in Flash, like inserting a graph, pie 
chart or form that communicates with the backend.

> - Shortening the Learning Curve for New and Novice Users
> Macromedia MX solutions offer a desktop-software level of
> interactivity that translates complex data and business processes
> into accessible applications for a wide range of users.
>
> I really don't know about this. All I know was beta1 had a steep
> curve and was difficult for even web developers to use.

Perhaps the language isn't clear: they're referring to two different 
groups: should read "Learning Curve for new and novice developers" and 
"accessible applications for a wide range of end users". See previous 
comment.

> -Saving Time With a Single Screen Interface
> [...] eliminating multiple page loads while offering users a
> single application view.
>
> But it loaded every time! It didn't always work right. It too *too
> long*.

Agreed, the MM site is not exactly a textbook example.

> The "pet store"
> example was somewhat interesting, but nothing like that really exists
> on the web - which seems to me so true of all these pitches. Nice
> demos, no real reality.

 From my experience as a single developer, you're half right here: three 
of the four so-called "Rich Internet Applications" I've been in on are 
not on the public internet: One needs a login/pass to access three: An 
employee task scheduling application, an interface to display real-time 
environmental data from remote locations, hierarchical display of of a 
huge technical documentation database. And the one I mentioned above 
that is on the public Internet has been a huge success.

If you missed it when I posted it here before, a great example of a of 
a "Rich Internet Application" is
<http://www.phpforflash.com/board/>

... another <http://www.miniusa.com/crm/load_mini.jsp>

.... another <http://www.fontsforflash.com/>

-----------------------
Erik Mattheis
GoZz Digital
<http://goZz.com/>
Flash and ColdFusion Development
Minneapolis, MN
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