RCP vs. Thin-Client
I think the strongest argument for the justification of thin-clients or web applications is the cost of deployment and management problems that are related to rich-clients especially those that are written in Visual Basic, Visual C++ etc. This argument became popular due to shared library problems, user's often tweak their installation resulting in undesirable setup, but the thin-client is actually a step back in functionality and capability even when there's AJAX around.
Due to the complexity of the domains today, users and problems are driving back to rich clients. An observation that I agree with the book above. The demand for rich client goes beyond the desire for rich user interface. Users need to be mobile, must be able to work offline, integrate, collaborate and maximize the power of their hardware. But how about the deployment and updates management? That's where Eclipse RCP is coming in.
Due to the complexity of the domains today, users and problems are driving back to rich clients. An observation that I agree with the book above. The demand for rich client goes beyond the desire for rich user interface. Users need to be mobile, must be able to work offline, integrate, collaborate and maximize the power of their hardware. But how about the deployment and updates management? That's where Eclipse RCP is coming in.
Comments