There’s a lot we’d lose by pushing JavaScript as the one true language – ditto Java, ObjC, etc. The advantage of native being ability to use your language of choice.
It also feels right now like we’re hacking a document technology for applications vs the MXML/XAML/XUL/NIB file approach of an XML mark-up designer for application interfaces.(Maybe there’s a model in how Cocoa uses nearly DisplayPDF as the actual presentation layer, but has a higher level of abstraction for application layout??)The other thing I’m dubious about is the return to ‘the application as island’ – i.e. back in the 80s applications were often ‘designed’ without any reference to how other applications or the platform work. Web apps have yet to ‘platformise’ in that sense. We’re still at the stage of MFC vs Delphi vs MacOS Carbon vs wxWidgets vs Qt – too many application frameworks.(This criticism applies both to web apps and mobile native. We’d just about licked the problem on the desktop, but developers always feel hemmed in by external standards).
But . . . all the vendors should do more work in supporting installable web apps. (w/out Flash or Java it’s the only x-platform option for most small shops, and wrapping webkit views in native wrappers as pretend apps is surely pointless to everyone?).

The hard part, I guess, is privacy/security management – either it becomes onerous (Vista) – with every app popping up requests – or you go down the restrictive App Store process of installable apps getting third party review. (I think the solution there involves certificates and chains of authority / circle of trust. We don’t need a single authority, but we DO need some kind of certification).

There’s a lot we’d lose by pushing JavaScript as the one true language – ditto Java, ObjC, etc. The advantage of native being ability to use your language of choice.
It also feels right now like we’re hacking a document technology for applications vs the MXML/XAML/XUL/NIB file approach of an XML mark-up designer for application interfaces.(Maybe there’s a model in how Cocoa uses nearly DisplayPDF as the actual presentation layer, but has a higher level of abstraction for application layout??)The other thing I’m dubious about is the return to ‘the application as island’ – i.e. back in the 80s applications were often ‘designed’ without any reference to how other applications or the platform work. Web apps have yet to ‘platformise’ in that sense. We’re still at the stage of MFC vs Delphi vs MacOS Carbon vs wxWidgets vs Qt – too many application frameworks.(This criticism applies both to web apps and mobile native. We’d just about licked the problem on the desktop, but developers always feel hemmed in by external standards).
But . . . all the vendors should do more work in supporting installable web apps. (w/out Flash or Java it’s the only x-platform option for most small shops, and wrapping webkit views in native wrappers as pretend apps is surely pointless to everyone?).

The hard part, I guess, is privacy/security management – either it becomes onerous (Vista) – with every app popping up requests – or you go down the restrictive App Store process of installable apps getting third party review. (I think the solution there involves certificates and chains of authority / circle of trust. We don’t need a single authority, but we DO need some kind of certification).

In all seriousness, Javascript + HTML + CSS is a terrible framework for software engineering. Sure its fine for “web applications” but lets face it, any real application will be twice as difficult to build in HTML/JS than it would be in Silverlight or Flex. Those two were perfectly positioned such that they allowed the richness of native applications with the ease of development of web applications. Without that kind of in-between technology, the options are either creating something really rich using native languages (with great cost) or create something with HTML/JS that will be a lower quality experience (also with great cost). Now… before all the HTML/JS people start let me just say that I have had the pleasure of building many enterprise Flex applications as well as the displeasure of building many enterprise HTML/AJAX (Dojo, JQuery) applications, not to mention several Java Swing applications. So, I am not one of those people (of which there are many) that wants to use Flex just because it is the only language I know. It really does (did) allow really great experiences to be build with the the least amount of effort. It is a real shame to hear the Adobe evangelists jumping ship so easily. All that promotion of AIR sounds like BS in hindsight.

In all seriousness, Javascript + HTML + CSS is a terrible framework for software engineering. Sure its fine for “web applications” but lets face it, any real application will be twice as difficult to build in HTML/JS than it would be in Silverlight or Flex. Those two were perfectly positioned such that they allowed the richness of native applications with the ease of development of web applications. Without that kind of in-between technology, the options are either creating something really rich using native languages (with great cost) or create something with HTML/JS that will be a lower quality experience (also with great cost). Now… before all the HTML/JS people start let me just say that I have had the pleasure of building many enterprise Flex applications as well as the displeasure of building many enterprise HTML/AJAX (Dojo, JQuery) applications, not to mention several Java Swing applications. So, I am not one of those people (of which there are many) that wants to use Flex just because it is the only language I know. It really does (did) allow really great experiences to be build with the the least amount of effort. It is a real shame to hear the Adobe evangelists jumping ship so easily. All that promotion of AIR sounds like BS in hindsight.

In all seriousness, Javascript + HTML + CSS is a terrible framework for software engineering. Sure its fine for “web applications” but lets face it, any real application will be twice as difficult to build in HTML/JS than it would be in Silverlight or Flex. Those two were perfectly positioned such that they allowed the richness of native applications with the ease of development of web applications. Without that kind of in-between technology, the options are either creating something really rich using native languages (with great cost) or create something with HTML/JS that will be a lower quality experience (also with great cost). Now… before all the HTML/JS people start let me just say that I have had the pleasure of building many enterprise Flex applications as well as the displeasure of building many enterprise HTML/AJAX (Dojo, JQuery) applications, not to mention several Java Swing applications. So, I am not one of those people (of which there are many) that wants to use Flex just because it is the only language I know. It really does (did) allow really great experiences to be build with the the least amount of effort. It is a real shame to hear the Adobe evangelists jumping ship so easily. All that promotion of AIR sounds like BS in hindsight.