Developing Web 2.0 components rapidly using Zembly

It’s been a revelation as I've used the Zembly platform from sun microsystems. It is basically an online IDE to develop your web 2.0 applications (aka social apps) which are then hosted on various social networking websites for all to see and use.

When I received an email about a blogging contest about this platform, I was initially sceptic about the technologies as I am not much of a fan of these platforms. Earlier, I had some frustrating experiences with these technologies(as they require a mashup of html,css,javascript,xml without a decent program development environment) and frankly speaking, wasn’t keen on developing them

Today, due to a chance introduction into a really cool technology (it was quite whirlwind), my efforts have been renewed. After a few days, when my semester exams are over, this would be a great technology to keep me busy this summer.

Application development has been a breeze in zembly as the widgets are created in a wizard like process and in addition to the standard editor, we get a wysiwyg ide which is amazingly customizable. The icing of the cake, however, is the ability to search and add readymade resources which can solve the problem of reinventing the wheel in these type of applications.
Currently, i've just started using this platform, but in near future, I am planning to induct the collaboration feature into my application development process which will further enhance the quality of applications that we (the team of developers constructing the widget) will create. This is not all as the website offers an excellent public rating system to determine as to where my application stands. In addition to an excellent web-based IDE, the zembly also offers various documentation tools and thoughtful features like a time line(see below).


On a sidenote, I've observed about the integration of this technology with various other services(social networking websites) as well as platforms(iphone, for instance). However, there was no integration/offering from the sun itself (I'll have to research here), which was baffling for me, considering the amount of attention they generated when javafx was launched. So my initial response towards this technology has been upbeat, but as it is new, not much resources are available for learning. Hopefully, this changes in the near future. For any further queries, do post here/mail me about the same.