Rich Internet Applications (RIA) and the future of the Internet junaidbhura | March 30, 2010 at 8:47 am | Tags: Client Education, Web Development | Categories: Client Education, Web Development | URL: http://wp.me/pBOiX-1q

Flex

No doubt, RIAs (Rich Internet Applications) are the future of the Internet, today. There seems to be a surge in demand for Adobe Flex and other RIA frameworks which can be rapidly developed and with amazing results.

I'm going to highlight Flex, because its the best example I can think of to make my point. RIAs were built to bridge the gap between old browser technology and what is about to unfold in the next year or so. So, in short, Flex and other such technologies will be on the decline once HTML 5 is officially out. This is because one will not need plug-in RIA technology like Flex (which btw is basically Flash, and hence is the proprietary technology of Adobe).

This reminds me of an interesting person I met in a company I used to work for who mentioned that optimizing web sites for mobile phones was the future. I insisted otherwise, stating the simple fact that mobile technology was then leaning towards computer technology, and hence the market that was being referred to was very short-lived. And it has happened now.

This is on almost identical lines to the RIA surge we are seeing today. Flex, Flash, Sun Java, Microsoft Silverlight and all other proprietary technologies will have a run for their money once HTML 5 is out, and there would no longer be a need for these plug-ins to be installed on the browser.

What will remain, though, is good old JavaScript. Now, the second and more important point I would like to make is this: What can Flex, Silverlight and Java do that JavaScript cannot? Absolutely nothing. They are all exactly the same thing. Microsoft and Adobe have done an excellent job in creating a need in the market and tapping them in just the right places. But if they are going to survive the HTML 5 aftermath, they'd better come up with something spectacularly unique.

What I am heading at, if you haven't already guessed the flow, is that JavaScript and AJAX are the best technologies to use (IMHO) in terms of scalability and in terms of availability of resources and developers (check my previous post on what web technology to use on your web site). If Google Maps, GMail,  Facebook, Yahoo, Bing, Twitter, WordPress, Banks, Airways, Railways and virtually every major player use JavaScript and AJAX; there is something obviously very wrong with everything else, right?

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