It is not very hard to write a completely stand-alone Javascript application that uses the browser as the rendering engine. You have access to CSS for layout, the DOM for data, and Javascript is a full language with some really nice features that I'd love to see added to Perl6 (but which won't be, for various reasons).

And, since you're writing it for a Win32 machine, you can specifically target IE, with all of its quirks, making your application quite easy to build quickly. Forms can be handled by 

<form onSubmit="do_something();return false;">
</form>

[download]
and everything else is done with location.reload() and a very small frameset.

The only thing you don't have using Javascript-in-IE vs. a standalone VB app is control of the menubar. Frankly, I'm not impressed with menubars in corporate apps.

Oh - deployment of fixes is now very simple, too. You just have an onLoad handler for the window that checks to see if a server is available, and then asks the server with XMLHTTPRequest if there's an update. If there is, it goes ahead and sets the location to the spot, does an implicit reload, and onLoad does a save of the data locally, overwriting the old icon. :-)

Being right, does not endow the right to be rude; politeness costs nothing.
Being unknowing, is not the same as being stupid.
Expressing a contrary opinion, whether to the individual or the group, is more often a sign of deeper thought than of cantankerous belligerence.
Do not mistake your goals as the only goals; your opinion as the only opinion; your confidence as correctness. Saying you know better is not the same as explaining you know better.

In reply to Re^3: Visual Basic to Perl transition by dragonchild
in thread Visual Basic to Perl transition by szabgab

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