title: Computationally intensive web app
body: <p>I'm working on some programs that carry out biological simulations (just as a hobby, not professionally), and some are very computationally intensive - they need to run for hours or even days before they can get really interesting results.  These programs are ultimately intended to be used as educational tools.</p>
  
  <p>I have been working in C++ (because it's fast) and using Qt as my framework for GUI stuff (because it's cross-platform).  This means that my programs would have to be distributed by somewhat traditional means (exe, app bundle, etc.).  However, I keep hearing from my programmer friends that downloading programs as executable files is old fashioned, and I should be making web apps instead.</p>
  
  <p>Now, to my real question: is it possible to make a long running, computationally intensive program work well as a web app?  And to be clear, since I have limited money to spend on this project and tons of CPU power would be needed, the computation would need to be done on the client, not on the server.  Is such a thing feasible, or should I just continue with my current C++/Qt approach?</p>