[Lazarus] FCL-web and bandwidth usage

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Tue, 27 Mar 2012, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:

> 2012/3/27 Michael Van Canneyt <michael at ...>:
>> These applications must behave and act as a desktop application, this is a
>> requirement. This is not possible without Javascript.
>>
>> Then you may ask, why not simply program a desktop application ?
>
> LOL, you took the words (or rather question) right out of my mouth.
>
>
>> Simple: people do not want an installer or updater.
>
> With Object Pascal / Delphi based apps, it is quite possible to have a
> no-installation required product. There are already many like them.

I heard this one before.

Answser: Not a complex one like ours. We update almost weekly.
So, we do have an automated updating feature. But then:

1. We use client/server technology.
    Meaning that sometimes, the server says 'update NOW', whether client is ready for it or not.

    Simply because sometimes the data model at the server end has changed and a
    non-up-to-date client will bomb out with errors.  And this kind of update
    happens at least once a month.

2. Users work in a protected environment, meaning that they have no rights on the machines.

1 combined with 2 means that the sysadmin must once a week visit all PCs to upgrade 
when we update our server. Clearly, this is not feasable.

So, we instruct all sysadmins to open the installation dir for general read/write access.
They're not very keen on doing so, and rightly so, but they do it.

> PS:
> I've ported one of tiOPF's older Support Apps, which is a automatic
> distribution and update system. This does exactly what I described
> above. It even has a nice Release Management interface to define what
> must be bundled in a release/auto install or update. Just a bit more
> code clean-up and some vital documentation needs to be added, then
> I'll make it available in the tiOPF repository.

I'll be glad to look at it.

> If you can convince your customers not to be "web app lemmings", then
> maybe this is your way back to desktop applications. :-)

I'm afraid it is too late for that.
In corporate environments, you cannot get out of the web app hype, like it or not.

Wait till they ask for integration with Google docs and Microsoft Live. (or office 365).
Then the real fun starts. Google is easy, MS is a mess :(

But that's way off topic.

Suffice it to say that when the need is there for web technology, fcl-web by itself does 
not impose huge demands on your internet connection.

Michael.