samedi, juillet 09, 2005

windows form or web form application ?

Among question that I am often posed before a development of small application, is what solution will I choose Windows form or Web form. Sometimes the choice is simple, but other times it is difficult and complicated. According to my experiment, I collected a certain number of advantages, with regard to a Web application :

- A Web application can be accessed from anywhere in the world where an Internet connection is available;
- the client doesn't need to be running Windows;
- A Web application is easy to deploy and update;

However a Web application is poor on certain criteria, where a Windows application form takes over :

- web application's user interface is quite poor. Some event are dificult to emitate, I would say even impossible, like drag and drop and right-clicking the mouse;
- Even when we do manage to do rich interface tricks, it usually requires an insane amount of client script, a kind of code that is particularly hard to write and debug;
- A Web application uses a lot of server resources, bandwidth, and user patience because most things have to be done at the server with a round trip and some waiting involved;
- Printing is very limited;
- Some of the problems above can be resolved through the use of plug-ins or ActiveX controls, but those in turn tend to have the same deployment problems.

I will like, if you have points to add, do not hesitate to add them in comments. Thank you

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