I was wondering if anybody had any experience of using Laszlo which seems to be an Open source system for developing web sites that is complimentary to Servoy’s prowess and managing the database link. In particular, I was impressed by their demo at http://www.laszlosystems.com/developers/
It seems to be a very good way to build a very rich user interface for web pages using similar technology and methodology to Servoy.
MerMer
Hi MerMer,
No never heard of this until now.
Looks very interesting/promising and will give it a look through over the Holidays !
Thanks for the heads up
Yuletide Felicitations
Cheers
Harry
Regarding Laslzo systems… check out their management team:
http://www.laszlosystems.com/company/management/
Anyone from the FileMaker world may remember Tony Campitelli and Amy Lewis. One of their board members and venture capital guy is David Orfao, also formerly of Claris. Both David and Amy worked at Allaiire, the Cold Fusion company, along with a handful of other Claris folks. It really is a small world.
Their story is interesting. They began trying to sell their products, but in 2004 switched to an open source model where they give away the product but sell services. It is somewhat similar to the mysql model.
Cheers,
Rich Coulombre
There seems to be alot of interest at the moment in RIA ( Rich Internet Application Experiences), partly because of the hype over AJAX technology.
OpenLazlo seems to be gaining ground as a means to create a very rich web experience. The product is open source and there is an free IDE that bolts into Eclipse. They are currently positioned against Flex from Macromedia, which uses proprietary, action script and is expensive.
What appeals about OpenLazlo is the use of open standards (Javascript etc) which means that it isn’t a million miles away from Servoy in getting my head around it. What appeals most with Open Lazlso is how cool the user interface is - I haven’t seen anything that is better. Their demo webmail application gives one a good idea of the possibilities.
Another company which is getting more reviews is Nexaweb which uses a thin client and Java.
On the Nexaweb site there is a PDF which documents why Nexaweb was chosen over the competition for a global application and roll out by Siemens. Having read it I wondered why Servoy didn’t get a mention. The main client requirements were easy deployment, use common technologies and good databinding and a easy development environment with drag and drop design capability - all of which Servoy seems to have.
In fact, it strikes me that there is a great deal of overlap between what Servoy is doing and the whole RIA market place - a space that Servoy could be getting more attention. Perhaps, when Servoy 3.00 is released others will take more notice. However, I guess that the current licensing model might put people off Servoy for general web development.
Longer term it does beg the question - that if other companies are developing rich applications, with strong databinding and GUI development for general web applications - then Servoy might come under pressure on its concurrent licencing usage.
MerMer
There are so many directions such a discussion can go.
One can discuss support, deployment, client side stuff etc.
Working with Servoy gives you great support, easy deployment, client running in webstart and no other needs than a standard Java installation at the clients side. The rest is dealt with. And, what about rapid development.
Don’t know enough about Lazlo but it is browser based, not at all a single GUI RAD tool and needs Flash on the client side.
Don’t want to go into any discussion about it. I think it really is comparing apples to pears and each one has a market (for the time being) depending on the needs…
It’s all about total cost of ownership. Typically the license cost of software is only 5-15% of the total cost of a project. If you look at the development and deployment time and effort you win with Servoy the licensing cost isn’t an issue at all.
Marcel,
I couldn’t agree more - I am a big fan of Servoy for the reasons you mention - all the more reason why Servoy probably deserves more recognition in the RIA space, but somehow doesn’t seem to have received it.
As far as Open Laszlo is concerned, I just like their ability to build a very cool user interface. I believe that they do now have a GUI IDE bolt on.
I also appreciate Jan’s comments about total cost of ownership and would agree with this in the majority of cases, particularly for internal, mid-size deployment. Where the case is weaker is where the product is being deployed as a general web application - such as a Web Store.
MerMer
I see Laszlo as a product that is complimentary to Servoy; especially to Servoy’s Headless Client and WebClient.
I found the demo at:
http://www.openlaszlo.org/platform/dataflow
to be a real eye-opener.
The Laszlo application is written as an xml text file. It is then placed on the server. When accessed from a web browser the xml application file is converted on the fly to a flash file and returned to the browser. The xml file could be created with a simple text editor like Notepad or it could be created by a Servoy method and written to the appropriate directory where it would be accessed from a browser and converted to a flash file on the fly. Pretty slick. Alternatively, the xml application can access data using a jsp page (similar to a Servoy headless client jsp page).