I am new to these internet news groups; but I am excited to learn because you people seam to know your stuff!!! I am fresh out of college; where I studied computer science and did very well. I stumbled upon a small business that does pest control. They hired me to install a network and build them a new server; and transfer all the existing data from a large foxpro database to a modern relational database. LOL, there existing server was a 386; running Novell 2.0!!! So after I finished that job there next step was to buy a new modern Pest Control Program. I wasn't impressed with what was available; and couldn't beleive that they were actually going to spend nearly 8,000 for a shabby program. So I thought about it, and figured this seams like a great opportunity for me to develope a better product; and hopefully sell it for the going market rate. Heck, I'm a college guy used to making 6.50 an hour; so I'd be happy with selling it for 4-5K!!! I am confident I can do this on my own, but I have some questions about the technology I should be targeting. I have a feeling that the concept of thin clients is really going to take off in the near future; now that the internet is so accessable and fast. So on one hand I want to develope the bulk for the program to run on a server, then simply display the results to the user through a thin terminal with an internet connection. After researching this I found that Macromedia has got server side tools to render a slick GUI on the flash platform(Flex); then it seams like Coldfusion would be the way to go for the backend. I see a couple potential problems with this concept... and thats where I'd like some feedback, both good and bad. Here are the problems; at least the way I see it:
1. Is the internet reliable enough to support business software like this?
2. Is flash going to be fast enough to support a full blown application?
3. Would is be practical to put a Flex/Coldfusion server on location in order to bypass all the risks that the internet brings into the picture?
4. Like most, I was trained to develope with C & C++; for obvious reasons. But in order to have a visually stunning application in C++ you'll have to write some very tricky code; and I frankly would rather not bother with that. Flash looks very appealing in that regard; and since it is stateless, it wouldn't really feel like an internet application. But again there is the issue of speed. There is also the challenge of learning the flash platform from scratch.
5. And finally there is the security issues. I know that the flash client can talk to the coldfusion server via flash remoting, which is a compressed format; and I'm assuming that it would be tough to make sense of that sort of data as it is flying through the net. Is that reasonable? And would the average client be able to trust you when you told them that it was really secure?
Just in case anyone isn't familiar with the concept of a thin client; all it really is is an otherwise wimpy computer that is piggybacking off of a faster server type computer. The server does all the work, while the thin client just displays the results, and accepts the user input. To the average home computer user this may not seam like much; but to a small business this is a great opportunity to save a great deal of money. Esp. when you consider that most business are paying at least $500 per office computer; which will become old tech in 3 years anyway. My current company was going to spend 6000 dollars on a new computer system for the office. I said I'll turn your old computers into new computers(thin clients) and simply give you a server and a network capable of handling all of them. The end result is a system that has no moving parts, and is in most cases just as far as a fat client. I spent about 1500 to build a server, and in retrospect I probably went overboard in some areas. But hey, we still saved 4500 dollars, and I was like a hero to them in doing so!!! I think the is a lot of money to be made in that area; and that is going to be a huge selling point when I go to sell my new application. Sad thing is I feel I have wasted my time in college learning yesterdays technology. Thank God for news groups. I hope others experement with with this concept, because if we could develope rich internet applicating to replace the applications we use all the time like Microsoft Office; we could basically break free from things like Windows. Don't get me wrong, Linux is great, but it will never work for the average person unless you make it as easy as Windows. Thin clients would be simple, stable, cheap; and Linux based in most cases.
Can't wait to hear what you all have to say about all this. Thanks in advance,
Shaun
PS: Here is a link to Flex; check it out. Has anyone ever tried it in a production environment? If you, how were the end results. They also have something called Lazzlo which is open source; but I'm not as impressed with it, but it is worth checking out.