RIA and Flash/Silverlight Debate Spills onto Facebook

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I thought this was hilarious (you probably need to be a Facebook member to view this, but I’ll summarize). There’s a group on Facebook for Silverlight (which I’m a member of) and in the comments people are debating the definitions of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) as well as talking about what it means to have both Silverlight and Flash. Here’s one of the comments that I disagree with:

By definition, a RIA runs in an independent client runtime. Vista Gadgets, OS X Dashboard, Yahoo Widgets, and Adobe Apollo are examples of RIA runtimes. A browser plug-in is not independent, and it sounds like that’s all Silverlight has at this point.

RIA confusion exists in many places. I think Flash and Silverlight are VERY much Rich Internet Application technologies. They are bringing a rich, interactive desktop-like experience to the web, which is the whole point. The client runtimes that the commenter mentions are also RIAs (to a point) but focus more on bringing great experiences to the desktop and incorporating web fundamentals, hence the blend.

I’m spending a lot of time on Facebook and it’s cool to see things like this pop up. We’ve got a Flex User Group on Facebook, a Flex Developers group, an Actionscript group, an Apollo Developers group, a Flash Developer group and a ColdFusion group. Lots of RIA to go around.

[tags]Facebook, Flash, Silverlight[/tags]

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  • http://www.rebelspirit.com.au Andrew Muller

    Classic, perhaps that poster should then fix the RIA definition at Wikipedia as it would appear to be wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_internet_application

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  • http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd John Dowdell

    “Classic, perhaps that poster should then fix the RIA definition at Wikipedia as it would appear to be wrong:”

    Oh, no, Wikipedia can never be wrong, you must be mistaken….. ;-)

    Summary and link to the introduction and definition of Rich Internet Applications:
    http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd/archives/2005/03/ria_definition.cfm

    jd/adobe

  • http://blogs.katapultmedia.com/jb2 John C. Bland II

    Ryan, what folks need to understand is when/why Macromedia “coined” RIA. If you recall, Broadmoor was “the” RIA of 2002 (or 2001…whichever year it was). People argue constantly about this and it will eventually become one of those Mac vs PC arguments (ignore it and move on or you’ll waste your whole weekend responding to posts). lol.

    JD’s link def defines it. ;-)

  • http://livinginsmallsizes.com Willi

    People are wasting their time debating this. Seems silly.

  • http://www.brandonellis.org/ Brandon Ellis

    The Flash/Silverlight RIA debate is not getting anywhere. I really think some kind of physical contest (like drinking or even like that TV show where you compete to be a ninja) to determine a winner is necessary at this point.

    Completely defining an RIA is like asking that old stupid question, “How long is a piece of string?”. I think we (as developers) are still wading through the ‘newness’ of it all.

    Besides, I’d rather build apps than have an internet debate any day. :)

  • http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com Ryan Stewart

    You’re all correct, it is kind of a dumb argument (on both counts). I mostly thought it was funny that it was a dumb argument on Facebook.

    I think this should be some kind of milestone for them. They *are* trying to take over the web, right? :)

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