I don’t know why, but i have this tendency to think about thin clients, whenever a new application idea is popping out my mind. It may be because of my interest in web technologies or because of my passion about HTML. But for one reason or other, I love to be thin.

For those who don’t know about thin/fat clients: Fat clients are the applications with networking capability that you need to install them in your local machine, in order to use them. Where as thin clients are light weight as their name suggests and do not require any software installation. Just use your browser to access these web applications.

It was the time, when I developed most of my application using Visual Basic GUI builder. All that applications had a n-number of dull-gray forms and controls.The end user of those applications had no choice, in terms of user interface, but to use what (s)he gets from the application installer. (S)He can not customize the application’s look and feel or to be precise the application can not tailer itself to suit the environment on which it runs.

This has other problems also. As I mentioned earlier, Fat clients needs installation. To install, you need the installer. How do you get the installer? Download it, but the CD or get it from GOD! Anyhow, the point is the vendor needs to distribute the application to each of the user who wants to use the application. Say, if you are the ONLY person who is gonna use the application, then there is no problem! The application developer can drive to your door and deliver the application to you. But what if a million’s of users willing to use the application!? Can the developer travel to all the user’s places and deliver the application!? Well, it is possible, but who the hell are willing to do that! So, the distribution is really a BIG problem with fat clients.

Also fat clients require the end user to setup/configure the system according to the specification of fat client. If the end user has no technical knowledge (but (s)he should be knowing that monitor is not a Television box!), then configuring the fat clients will require additional support from System admins. Its a work overload.

So, to put it short why I love to be thin:

• Fat clients lack dress sense - no UI customization
• Fat clients need special bus - distribution is a BIG problem
• Fat clients require more time to get ready - configuring them needs special attention

In my next post, I will be explaining how to be thin.

Tags: Fatclient, Thin client, Architecture, Web