Web Directions North » Blog Archive » Announcing the Rich Internet Application session

The last year or two has seen the rapid rise of the latest web TLA (three letter acronym) the RIA (or Rich Internet Application).

The term RIA (coined by Macromedia in 2002) refers to desktop-like applications running on the client, which interface with server side processing or storage. Traditionally, RIA client side applications have been developed using Flash, (and even earlier Java) but the last couple of years has seen a lot of change in this aspect of the web.

Adobe’s Flash has developed into Flex and now AIR (formerly known as Apollo), while Microsoft’s new kid on the block Silverlight is also aimed squarely at providing similar tools and solutions.

And of course the rise of Ajax, and Javascript libraries and techniques means that purely browser based web applications are increasingly desktop like.

So, to help developers and designers get a better sense of what these technologies can do, and both their strengths and weaknesses, we’ve put together an RIA focussed session for Web Directions North. Rather than having representatives from Microsoft and Adobe speak about their respective technologies, we’ve approached experienced developers who’ve used them in real world project to speak about their experiences, and help you get a good understanding of what these technologies can and can’t do.

Andre Charland is the co-founder and CEO at Nitobi Inc. Highly conversant in Ajax and Javascript (he wrote the highly regarded “Enterprise Ajax”), Andre is also an experienced AIR expert. Walter Smith is a co-founder of Jackson Fishmarket, who earlier this year were involved in developing one of the earliest complex Silverlight applications, Tafiti.

Regardless of whether you see yourself using these or similar technologies today or anytime soon, we feel this will be a really valuable session to help you understand a fast emerging aspect of web development that can’t be ignored.

Posted by John on 17/12/07 at 5:41 pm