First and foremost, congrats to everyone in here remaining professional. People made great comments and I see and clearly understand all of your points. Thanks for letting me express my opinion without getting out of hand as many do on boards like this. Your article did drive me to think which is always fun, and I am back again!! So in that respect, your article was quite a success.

Flash is revolutionary, yes, agreed. Constatly worrying about different browsers is a pain, agreed again.

I am not a server dude at all. I can run them and configure them but my specialty is DHTML, CF, Java, MS SQL and Flash. My point is that clients come and go like trains. The concept of the Web Server, running centralized code over the internet is what makes this type of programming great. This is also what makes it better than client programming.

I do not see a difference between the two as far as fucntionality goes. Any application that just simply moves data from point A to point B can be done with a web app. There are 1000''s of client apps out there that have designed soley for this purpose and it just does not make sense to me. Now if you are talking about an application like Fireworks for example, that is a very different story. That has proper justification to be created as a client application in my book, but it is doing more than just operating on some text, then storing it.

I have not seen the Flash MX 2004 article and that is not the one that I am talking about. I was talking about a CF article posted in the CFMX Developer Journal. If all you did in your article was put a piece of text on the stage that says Hello World, then run it, then yes I would have been dissapointed. But Flash is changing dramaticly with every release, especially in the past year or two. The code syntax changes alot and major components are added. If it were a Hello World example that was delivered through a web service that would be a little more along the lines of what I would expect from a developer journal.

The CF article I mentioned was not covering anything new to CFMX. Anyone who has used CF in the past 5 years should be able to do that the same way they always have.

And as for writing my own article....

Only if I am getting paid! lol

But I do have a suggestion if someone wants to cover it.

Lets say I have 33 million rows in a database, say ORACLE version 8.71.

Now lets say I write a select statement that selects about 25,000 of those rows.

On the first search results page, I want to show the first 100 rows, yet still have a full record count. I dont want to bring all 25,000 rows back to the CF Server every time I go to the Next Page >>. I want it to be fast and effeciant.

Much like google does, or used to do. Those guys win the blue ribbon in my opinion. They used to show a string like this.

Now viewing the first 25 results from 1,300,598 records found out of 13,004,001,234 total pages searched in .13 seconds.

Now that is impressive!

I would like to try to do this without platform specific SQL or Stored procedures. Because next week I will need to do the same thing using MS SQL 2000.

Hey, i had a "Hello World" example in my article named "The Flash MX 2004 Professional Data Architecture" published in November 2003. How cool is that to read from people like "web_dev" that it''s intended audience is amateurs, instead of professionals. Especially if i got feedback from seasoned developers in our community how my article helped them getting started. I think people like "web_dev" should put your money where your mouth is, and write an article and put it on the web or publish it in a magazine, or start a weblog where you can post your comments. Btw, if you''re not talking about my article, then i would like to know which one you mean, unfortunately i''m not subscribed to this magazine. :)

It is biased, yes. I''m biased towards Central; I want Flash Developers to find value in it. If DHTML developers find value in it, or at least question more to find out more about Central, then that''s cool too.

I''m not sure which were half-truths, and which were not...? I''m idealist, so yes, it is wishful-thinking because I think a lot of what I say will come to fruition in a good way.

I know squat about DHTML and it''s ability to work in the browser. I''ve coded like a few moving DIV''s, and that''s about it, so if what you say is factual, then cool.

However, I disagree with Win/IE being able to do anything Flash can do; that''s a little broad.

I''m not sure how having paying Flash jobs adds credence to what you say, though. There are a bunch of ways one can use Flash, but the fact you used Flash is cool.

I feel your article is biased and evangelistic.

I agree a lot with the first feedback post. Your article is full of half-truths and wishful thinking. The half-truths relate to MSIE. MS Win/IE is equipped with excellent DHTML support(albeit proprietary to Win platform). Anything Flash or Swing can do so can Win/IE. Data retrieval can be done in the background with XMLHTTP. JavaScript can be abstracted using Behaviors. Just look what the crew at oddpost did. The cross platform argument is a perceived advantage -- in the real world 95% of businesses in North America use Windows.

Putting Win/IE aside -- in general DHTML is a much more formidable foe in the RIA space than 2 or 3 years ago(every since Netscape 4.7 fazed out). Writing cross-platform DHTML is much faster due to browser maturity.

Flash''s big problem is that JavaScript/DHTML/CSS/XHTML web apps are good enough(usability wise) and are fast to develop.

I must add that I had two paying "Flash" jobs between 1999 and 2001.

Thanks for your feedback!

You make a lot of points, and I''m still digesting it all, but figured I''d see if I could help relay some things I said in a different way. I usually write a lot more than is necessarey to get a point across merely to make sure I''ve covered all angles. Sometimes, that''s not enough.

To me, the ability to manage a desktop application in Central is made easy, 1000 or more. I have 2 assurances: Every single one of them is using Flash Player 6.0.65.0 and they are using Version X. If I choose to have them upgrade, I know that they have, and what version of my app they are running.

What the web doesn''t give me is this platform version assurance. I have issues all the time with Mac/safari/fire...fox/etc. users not seeing the content the way I intended, as well as working the way I inteded. Central, at least, gives me this piece of mind. That could be the lack of my web design, skill, though. However, I''d rather be spending my time building an app rather than making sure it runs correctly.

Competeting with IE is what I meant to convey. Rather, Central provides an alternative for Flash developers to deploy to, just as SmartClient is an alternative for .NET developers. This doesn''t lessen the importance of IE as a viable platform in any way.

Your not getting an understanding from my article about what Central is very understandable; many people are reporting that they really don''t understand what Central really is, even after reading multiple marketing articles, targeted at developers and those that aren''t. Even Flash Develoepers, who''ve read both, are still unconvinced to even spend time on it. The above is my attempt to convey the value that I see, personally, in Central. I encourage you to do more research on it and not take my article as the end all, be all description of it.

I did, however, correctly convey to you my dislike of the web vs. desktop apps; score a point for that message being conveyed correctly!

You sound like a server-dude; because to me, a web app is not the same in effectiveness, and definately not in goals as a desktop app. I think they are different worlds, with a lot of similiarities. The reason I make the generalization about you is, as a user and developer, I care little for the server; what gives me value from the web is the browser and apps/content I use/read within it. I could care less if the server is Linux/Unix/Solaris/NT/Mac/what have you. None of them, in my eyes, directly rely more or less value of the web too me.

My writing does tend to beat to a different drum, I''ll admit that.

Keep in mind this article is an editorial, meant to be my opinion, and not to tackle any technical problem. The topic of conveying the value of Central to developers goes beyond solving just one problem, but rather a plethora of them.

I''m not mad, and I don''t think the above is a flame. I talk a lot too... too much. If I got you to think, then I feel like I accomplished something.

I think the author of this article is missing the point of the web in general, especially with how it relates to desktop applications. One great point that was missed is code manageablilty. Desktop applications have to be updated through very tedious means especially when dealing with 1000''s of users. Things like SMS, issuances and other push technologies just can''t justify themselves when the exact same app can be created on the web and managed from a central location.

Most companies have chosen IE as the platform that is to be supported. There are no worries about which platform, its microsoft Windows 2000 and XP. People make such a big deal out of the other platforms when there really are none. Those UNIX users are not using UNIX on a daily basis. They are telneting into a UNIX box from a MS windows machine. They have IE and if they expect to work for anyone of these companies then they will need to use IE rather than lynx on UNIX. Same goes for Mac users. IE is not un-standardized, neither is the web. There are just alot of people out there with bad ideas, ideas like trying to copmpete with Microsoft IE. IE is not hard to program for either. It is quite elegant and I can create a UI that is equally as compelling as any opther programming language out there, web based, CD-ROM based, Flash based, Desktop based or otherwise.

I realize that your trying to write an article on a new product or service, so your trying to bring up points that make it sound good. This Central thing, whatever that is. I read your whole article and I still have no idea what it is or what it can do for me. All I hear is you complaining about how the web sucks and how desktop apps rule. A desktop based flash application is effective for the same reasons that the web is effective, which is the whole point that was missed just so you could sell your product. It''s really the concept of a web server that makes the web what it is not the web browser and definalty not Flash.

Very strange writing, which I have come to expect from MX dev journal. Kinda like the Hello World article that was posted a few months ago in this magazine. Im sorry but I thought that developer journals were for professionals, to discuss real topics and give answers to problems in the real world. The Hello world example is for ametuers, not seasoned professionals. The more I read the more I believe that this magazine is merely a sales tool. Not a developer journal.

Don''t get mad and flame me, I just talk alot, I still have the subscription and will wait for it to get better because I love Macromedia. This is just me thinking out loud, use it as a piece of mind and move on with your life.