The Future of C/S apps, VB/C#

[Thelonius]

This is more of an opinion poll/discussions type question.

What do you see as the long term future use/need of stand-alone executables will be? With what ASP.NET and JSP are able to do these days, I'm wondering if the need for EXEs will die one day, and with it a need for developers like ourselves, regardless of the language. The question is how soon? I like how MS is going for the total integration of web and exes, but I also see the possibility that MS will slowly stop developing tools to build non-html dependant applications and focus all of their energy on web stuff. I don't think maintenance and distribution of C/S apps will EVER be as easy as web-apps. Will the costs involved in supporting those apps eventually collapse the demand for developers.

[Cander]

mm no..Standalone is not going to die anytime soon and MS is not trying to move away from that. You may have more power at the server for web apps, but it is the client that is lacking. HTML and javascript just are not enough to replace standalone apps clients. If anything MS is trrying to get away from regular dummy terminal clients like web browsers.

[gijsj]

Cander is absolutelly right !!

The use of desktop apps in corporate environments will even increase in the next couple of years. The only reason browser apps are so populare (within the enterprise) is because of deployment. .NET really solves many of these problems.

A nice article:
Death of the Browser?

[Thelonius]

Interesting article. I wasn't able to get the example to work. I kept getting a Execution Policy exception, but I can see how this works. I guess I had never looked at the "workaround" approach to web-apps. Ahhh... so many choices.