Question: tools for business apps development

[Larry Bugbee]

>> -- It's too glitzy :-) Yes, it may be a problem for people used to
>> design apps the old way. It's funny to note that Windows apps are not
>> much different from old text apps, as far as the structure of the
>> dialogs and windows is concerned. Everything is a rectangle. Flash
>> frees you of this kind of limitation. This kind of freedom can be
>> frightening for old timers (such as me).
> 
> 
> :) By any measure, I'm an old-timer as well. 

FWIW, I have removed Flash as have some other folks I know.  The reason 
is because we do not multi-task and cannot read the page with all the 
flashing and movement.  ...removed because there is no option to disable 
(yes, there are now a couple of Firefox extensions).

Just because there may be a large percentage of browsers with Flash, 
there is still a large number (raw count) that don't and won't.

If a rich client is what you are after, consider XUL in conjunction with 
css, javascript and your favorite language.  A web site can serve XUL, 
the XUL can be distributed as a browser extension, or the XUL can be 
packaged as a double clickable app.  It is a whole heck richer than HTML 
without the unintended side-effect annoyances caused by Flash.
   http://xulplanet.com/tutorials/whyxul.html
   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xul/

Oh, I too have silver hair.  :-)

Larry