RIA Introduce

Comparison among several technology

What is RIA

Rich Internet Application• Browser-Server architecture

• Friendly user experience and operation

• No deployment cost

• Refresh part of page

About RIA

Features• Beautiful and exciting outlook

• Maintain client’s state in client side

• Reduce server’s burden

• Use plain text file in communication

Main RIA technology

Flex• Developed by Macromedia, and now Adobe

SilverLight• Developed by Microsoft

Ajax• Based on Javascript

JavaFX• Developed by Sun

Flex

Macromedia first introduce the RIA concept.

Use .mxml and Action Script (.as)

The final result of Flex is a Flash displayed by a browser with Flash Player.

Object-Oriented

Flex

Advantage• Over 90% of the browser has installed Flash Player

• Different browser, same result

• Efficiency and resource usage are acceptable

• IDE (Flex Builder) is built on Eclipse, support drag and drop component into codes.

Disadvantage• close source

• Cost lot of time compiling when running the first time

SilverLight

Microsoft want to catch up in the RIA world

Use .xaml as its UI and Javascript as its script

Built on .NET framework and WPF

Grammar is similar to JSON, clear and easy to understand.

SilverLight

Advantage• Good at displaying and design image

• Support stream media (also MP3)

• Declarating development

• Developed by Windows (2009/7/10 SilverLight 3) and Based on .NET framework

Disadvantage• Need to install a plug-in for the browser

• Based on Windows OS and Mac OS

AJAX

Asynchronous JavaScript and XML

Actually not a technology, but a concept

Classical pattern: CSS, Html, JavaScript and XML

Core Concept: use XMLHttpRequest to refresh page partly

AJAX

Advantage• Use JavaScript, no need to learn other language

• Week-type language

• No need to install anything

• Open source. (jQuery, Dojo, Ext…)

Disadvantage• Results depend on browser.(IE6,IE7,FF…)

• Security issue (Violation of ‘Same Source Policy’)

• Not a special IDE, difficult to program and debug

JavaFX

Developed by Sun, include JavaFX script and JavaFX Mobile

Not a mature language till now, but is still growing

With the support of Java, it has some privileges

Running on JRE in browser

JavaFX

Advantage• Declarating development

• Direct call to Java code and API

• Support multi-thread (not in Flex) and eval (only in js)

• Once Developing, Run everywhere

Disadvantage• Incomplete support in web developing

• Too late

• Oracle has purchased Sun

Comparison(1)

JavaFX and Flex• Flex is better than JavaFX now, in tech and in usage

• But Flex is 3.0 while JavaFX is 1.2

• Flash support Flex, which is originally designed for designer, rather than programmer.

• Java support JavaFX, which owns a lot of faith Java guys. (Also Swing, AWT, SWT, Java3D)

Conclusion: Flex is better. But JavaFX is more promising.

Comparsion(2)

JavaFX and SilverLight• Similar to the difference between J2EE and .NET

• SilverLight will get more support in Windows OS

• JavaFX gain more in transplantation

• In terms of Image Support, SilverLight is better.

• JavaFX need to install JRE, while SilverLight need to install its plug-in and .NET

Conclusion: Which to choose depends on different occasions.

Comparison(3)

JavaFX and AJAX• JavaScript is more popular and familiar

• JavaScript has much frameworks

• JavaFX gets same results among browsers

• JavaScript is difficult in debug. (alert?)

Conclusion: AJAX is used in more cases. JavaFX is still a baby towards AJAX, but maybe exceed AJAX when Sun (maybe Oracle) pay attention to it.

Thanks!