Matthew Small wrote:
> OK, that explains why we have a disconnect here.  I know that the acronym
> RIA could stand for more than Flash, but I've not seen it used to describe
> anything except a Flash/Webservice driven application, so I meant RIA =
> Flash.

The terms "RIA" and "AJaX" are actually at different functional 
levels... one describes how things act, the other describes how things 
are made:

--  "Rich Internet Applications" are defined by a feature set, a set of 
capabilities, rather than by a technology... see summary and source link 
here:
http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd/archives/2005/03/ria_definition.cfm

--  "AJaX" is an acronym for "Asynchronous Java and XmlHttpRequest" (the 
JavaScript still doesn't work asynchronously; it just makes a remote 
request which takes a little while to fulfill). In practice, however, 
"Ajax" usually refers to advanced JavaScript work in browsers, whether 
or not Microsoft's XmlHttpRequest function is invoked.

The term "RIA" has been used in different contexts since its original 
definition, but not all of these have seemed very rich to me -- web 
browsers have always been able to refresh IMG tags, and now they can 
request new text data too, but there's a lot more to "rich media" than that.

For whether one will kill the other, that's hard to imagine, because 
software is a thing rather than a person. ;-)  Like other folks said 
here already, any additions to our technology toolsets is useful, and 
today many people are more comfortable with advanced JavaScript than 
they were a year or two ago.


Kevin Graeme wrote:
 > The Flash RIA is practically stillborn, IMO. The only place
 > I see people even talk about it is on macromedia related
 > lists and blogs. The vast majority of developers I talk to
 > that aren't part of the MM groupthink don't seem to even
 > know the "RIA" term.

??  Google reports 45 million hits, although I suspect that's inflated:
http://www.google.com/search?q=rich+internet+application

jd





-- 
John Dowdell . Macromedia Developer Support . San Francisco CA USA
Weblog: http://www.macromedia.com/go/blog_jd
Aggregator: http://www.macromedia.com/go/weblogs
Technotes: http://www.macromedia.com/support/
Spam killed my private email -- public record is best, thanks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
Flash for programmers - Flash MX Pro
http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=56

Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:177226
Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5
Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5
Unsubscribe: 
http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54

Reply via email to