Composite Applications

Well, that got a bit hectic towards the end there...

Apologies for not adding any posts before the Christmas holidays. I was working on a couple of smart client sample applications for a smart client resource DVD we are putting together. Between that and going to sunny Florida for Christmas, I didn't get chance to distil the random thoughts which constitute my conscious mind into any meaningful blog entries...

Happily, the DVD is looking fairly complete now, so now we have a huge amount of smart client related code, articles, white papers and presentations all on one easy-to-lose disk. I'll try and provide links to some of the more interesting content here in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, check out this video of a Longhorn smart client demo for real estate agents...

msdn.microsoft.com/Longhorn/productinfo/default.aspx

Try doing that in a browser! Also, check out this interesting article on Ray Ozzie's blog.

<www.ozzie.net/blog/stories/2003/11/14/640kbOughtToBeEnoughForAnyone.html>

We moved away from stand-alone client applications to connected applications, where the client is connected to some useful back-end services, but now we are moving to 'composite' applications where the client-side functionality is provided by more than one application, with each application collaborating with the others to provide just the right functionality to the user.

PS - Finally, saw Lord Of The Rings last week. Pretty impressive stuff, but why cut out the exchange between Saruman and Gandalf?How did that Palantir fall out of the tower and into the water?  Apart from that though, top-hole stuff...