Kyatric, The Runtime you link to is part of what i call the "Plugin SDK" and i guess "Runtime SDK" is what is being called "EDK" but i did not know what you guys were calling it. So yeah i am talking about the Exporter Development Kit (EDK) yes, i figured you/other people would have understood that from my first post so i am sorry if i caused confusion.
Ashley, I fully understand about the time issues but reading some of the comments makes it seem almosty like after having worked on Classic you never want to work with the EXE/native format again.
As for your points against a EXE runtime/exporter you make some good points however a lot of it seems like frustrations maybe from previous experience developing Classic, i really can't comment on that but as for EXE as a format however here would be my own opinions on it.
1) I really don't see people being limited to either windows, mac or possibly linux as a problem. Only untill very recently these were probably the only options people had available anyway.
Also what about Classic which is EXE with DirectX so probably windows only without tools? Why make anything other than a program that exports to all formats if multi-format export is so important. A lot of mobile devices also don't have anywhere near the power of native platforms and you also need to think about things like file size and optimizations a lot more so you have added limitations developing for some mobile platforms currently.
2) That's just down to the people that make the game/program though and OS's now have better security so it's all down to if people are ok running the EXE. Classic could have been a virus but it's not as far as i know yet many people were more than happy run that on their computers.
3) True for many points but as for not being able to port games you could have the argument the other way around and say that some people could not export EXE games to HTML5 because they don't have whatever plugin. Still at the same time there is many plugins available for Classic by 3rd party devs.
Also by saying "a constant thorn in our side. We want to avoid this situation at all costs." you make it sound like there won't be other runtimes than javascript because as far as i know just like EXE's many runtimes would need to use there own programming languages anyway and not be able to base everything on Javascript. The fact that there is technology's like Phonegap is lucky for the HTML5 runtime also because otherwise many of the current mobile phone/tablet export formats would not even be possible.
4) This is perfectly understandable. As i said before it would be great to think that much later into the future a EXE exporter might happen, but replying to your points i don't really see it happening in any other form than a wrapper for HTML5.
As for EXE advantages as well as the point you already made a few others are:
1) One thing i notice people choosing HTML5 over flash saying as a negative point against flash is that it needs a plugin to run, i don't see that as a good point myself, both need a browser to run. With EXE's however you don't need to run them within a browser. Another advantage for EXE is also that it's easy to give them shortcuts making them even quicker and really simple for people to run.
2) With EXE's for games in general the file size is not much of a problem. With web games such as HTML5 you need to make sure they are within a certain size range otherwise some people won't even bother to run them, this is also true for flash games. With web games you would also need web hosting or something like dropbox so people can play them but these have limitations like bandwidth, while costs are generally low this is a additional concern that you don't have with EXE's.
3) To take advantage of HTML5 you really need WebGL right now, you will not only need a compatible graphics card but to update the browser also. A while back there was also talk of security issues with WebGL, to avoid things like that and get speed improvements and visual error fixes etc if they happen you need browser and graphics card updates which makes it a similar process to EXE anyway.
4) EXE's are more secure and often compact, with HTML5 they are more visible and open hence the need for obfuscation etc. Sure you can say that you can rip things out of exe which is true but EXE is much nicer as default and also standalone so they don't need to be run from within a browser.
5) With Classic you are not just limited to games, that's true for HTML5 also but with EXE Classic has shown it's nice for making apps also. I think there has already been a few made with Classic and one good advantage that goes along with this is the fact that EXE is good at linking to the OS for system tasks. Javascript can also for some things and you could make web apps however you are mostly limited to the browser as it acts more like a sandbox. So maybe less of a point than the others but definitely still worth making because EXE is much better for system tasks.
"Adobe have ditched Flash for mobile, and is rapidly being replaced by HTML5 on the web anyway, so I see no reason to develop for it at all."
I would have said it's more like they wanted AIR to be the main adobe platform because it's much better suited for it. Also they will still be updating the flash player just not in a major way. Flash remains very strong on the PC platform though and will for a long time, with Stage3D it's now very powerful.
As i said before Flash/Flex could have been a good platform for Scirra to offer and would be good with plugins also but it's clear like EXE this probably won't happen.
While i don't really agree with your thoughts about EXE or flash i would like to say thanks for at least taking the time to respond back to me as i know you are very busy. Also putting opinions on exporters aside though i think you have done a great job Construct 2 for HTML5 so far so also thanks for a great program.