This certainly isn’t the latest news, but i feel so excited that i have to share it.
I remember when i first came across it was when Adobe sent me an email asking me to try out “Apollo”. It was quite an honor, although i’m pretty sure quite a lot of people got that email as well. At first, after reading about it, i got really confused with the point of “Apollo”. Another application that supports web content + Ajax? And it is a desktop based? Those two were my biggest questions. I’ve already had enough frustration with all the crazy browser, and now another one comes into the play?
Obviously I was wrong. It turns out to be one of the greatest web serving platform i’ve ever come across with. Here’s why I think it is and feel free to criticize and comment on it (i promise i won’t cry)
1. It is not another web browser and the application created can be run on any OS platforms.
2. No need to worry about browser compatibility issues since they all get served off the same engine
3. No need to learn a new language. This part is my favorite. AIR™ let’s you code an application in your most comfortable script languages. This includes HTML, CSS, Javascript, Flash and Flex. Ok, maybe flash action script and flex can not be considered as script languages, but you get my point
4. For the very first time, anyone can create a web based application and have it compiled as a desktop application
5. Ajax calls are fully supported.
6. Cross Platform. Somehow, I’ve always had issues with Visual Studio. Not that it is not powerful. It is just too much hassle to create a simple application and plus it doesn’t support going beyond Windows. You can hit me hard on this one by saying there are tons of ways to write application, and compile them to be universal across the board. But why? Why would I waste some much time and energy on that? After all, development should be kept simple, fast, and effective. Shouldn’t the IDE be smarter and take care of it for me?
7. being able to access local resources on the PC (or Mac).
So how do i envision about AIR™? I think it is still too early to say that it is going to dominate the web development community. It is like Flex, it is not meant to replace what we already have ( don’t be scared IE team, but be scared, Silverlight™ team ) but rather enhance the whole user experience. It makes me think about all the possibilities that i can explore:
- Have a kick ass web based platform
- provide a peripheral desktop application
- the data on both sides are synchronized
Fun and Exciting isn’t it?
You know what i’m thinking? A WordPress publishing application written in AIR™ …. 
Links to AIR™ resources:
AIR™ Homepage:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air/
Develop on Adobe AIR with HTML and JavaScript:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air/develop_ajax.html
Aptana with AIR plugin:
http://www.aptana.com/air/ ( did i mention you can import your favorite js library with this? look, jQuery is on the list as well )
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