Comments on: links for 2007-03-20 http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2007/03/19/links-for-2007-03-20/ because technology is just another ecosystem Tue, 02 Dec 2008 03:23:29 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: Andrew Shebanow http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2007/03/19/links-for-2007-03-20/#comment-38910 Andrew Shebanow Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:36:44 +0000 http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2007/03/19/links-for-2007-03-20/#comment-38910 I'm a big fan of Eclipse, and Adobe likes it a lot too (see FlexBuilder 2). But the RCP is not and will never be an Apollo competitor. Here's why: * RCP is about building a portable platform for traditional desktop applications using traditional desktop GUI frameworks. SWT, etc. Apollo is about bringing web development techniques and tools to the desktop. * RCP is heavyweight. The base framework installer is 6.6MB, NOT INCLUDING THE JRE. You want an update mechanism with that, or an HTML rendering engine? Those aren't included in the 6.6MB. (To be fair, that 6.6MB does include a lot of functionality that Apollo doesn't even try to address.) * There is no ubiquity story for RCP. How will they ever get to the point where its runtime has an installed base measured in the tens or hundreds of millions? Don't get me wrong. I think the RCP is a pretty darn decent platform and that anyone who is looking to build traditional desktop apps in a portable way should take a good hard look at it. But an Apollo competitor it ain't. I’m a big fan of Eclipse, and Adobe likes it a lot too (see FlexBuilder 2). But the RCP is not and will never be an Apollo competitor.

Here’s why:

* RCP is about building a portable platform for traditional desktop applications using traditional desktop GUI frameworks. SWT, etc. Apollo is about bringing web development techniques and tools to the desktop.
* RCP is heavyweight. The base framework installer is 6.6MB, NOT INCLUDING THE JRE. You want an update mechanism with that, or an HTML rendering engine? Those aren’t included in the 6.6MB. (To be fair, that 6.6MB does include a lot of functionality that Apollo doesn’t even try to address.)
* There is no ubiquity story for RCP. How will they ever get to the point where its runtime has an installed base measured in the tens or hundreds of millions?

Don’t get me wrong. I think the RCP is a pretty darn decent platform and that anyone who is looking to build traditional desktop apps in a portable way should take a good hard look at it. But an Apollo competitor it ain’t.

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