The Spectrum of RIA

Joe Blogs — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:42:56 GMT

Ryan Stewart has a great post about where we are with the definition of RIA, and Scott Barnes continues

re: RIA is slowly fading in terms of it's definition.

justinfreitag@mac.com — Thu, 22 May 2008 09:15:27 GMT

I could care less about the term RIA...as you mention its over-used, widely misunderstood, and isn't particularly helpful when you're trying to embark on move away from more traditional server-side rendering technologies. I don't believe that Rich Client Platform hits the mark either - the term "rich" is far too often misunderstood. The strength behind these UI platforms (flex/AIR, silverlight/WPF) is the thick client abilities, coupled with a flexible component architecture and simple integration with the server tier (note that AJAX is not mentioned) These strengths contribute to adding real business value through supporting 1) rapid/agile design/development approaches, 2) quicker time to market, and 3) are more likely to meet and exceed customer expectations. 6 years ago I was building application UI's in JavaWebStart and Swing which proved very productive and successful, however the market largely pursued server-side MVC frameworks such as Struts and/or Portlets which offered no where near the benefits of the former. I'm glad to see the pendulum finally swing.