Breathing in new AIR

It’s been a lot of fun exploring some of the more recent technologies of late, and my next stop might be one of the most exciting so far.  I started working with Adobe’s AIR product last week, and I am very, very impressed.  First, let me disclose that I am not a fan of Flash (understatement of the year award goes to…).  So, I didn’t give AIR a shot.  Mistake. AIR is like having a web server running within an application that can run on any OS.  Writing html and javascript allows for leveraging existing skills, but also allows for focusing on the output and interaction without worrying about how many browsers to support or handling all the IE hacks.

AIR isn’t perfect, but there are some aspects that it addresses that are enthralling:

1. It runs on WebKit, so I don’t have to test on 5 browsers and 3 platforms (not entirely true, depending on how you deal with menus and filesystems in AIR, but basically accurate).

2. It can run connected or disconnected.  Perfect if you are facing a project that has a need for both online and offline functionality, as I currently do.

3. It has excellent support for javascript libraries like Yahoo YUI and JQuery.

4. If planned well, one can re-use much of the development in a web version of an application (not exactly, write once, run anywhere, but closer than any alternative I’ve seen).

5. Access to local file system and SQLite database.  Try that in your web app.

Of course, the downside is that an AIR app gets installed.  This is an obvious requirement for such an application, but it is a downside relative to running a Flash swf, since corporations would have to allow admin priveleges.

So, if you haven’t given it a fair shake, I’d strongly suggest you do.  One could easily argue that it is also the worst of two worlds–it requires an installation like a WinForm app and it is not quite as easy to ensure everyone has the right version as it is with a Web app.  However, if you are facing an offline/online requirement, you are not doing yourself a favor by ignoring the potential of this framework.