How and Why AJAX, Not Java, Became the Favored Technology for RIAs

ajaxworldmagazine.com

12 points·ashu··5 comments

It's too bad. Javascript-in-the-browser and Ajax are both nasty hacks that force programmers to do all sorts of shameful things. And the result is--wanky html tricks. Java, for its faults, is fairly clean when run in the applet environment. It has every superiority over JITBAJAX, except for install issues and a chunky load process. Yahoo games seems like just about the only applet success story. Of course, back in the day, non-trivial Applets tended to be too large for the dial-up accounts people had. At least that is changed.

Wow...I was pulling for XUL to replace the Ajax mess we have today, but this Flex thing looks like a serious contender. What a concept: sane, debuggable webapps that look slick, too!

So what about Flex and, especially, Apollo (http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Apollo) then? Is Apollo likely to achieve mass adoption? Would startups be well advised to consider building applications on it?

I can't find the reference now, but I *think* I've just read something suggesting that the install process for an Apollo applet will involve an "install-this-application?" confirmation dialog followed by a download of 30 seconds or so. If so then Apollo's less promising than I hoped. That kind of install may be low-friction by desktop-app standards but it doesn't compare to the ease of starting a browser-based AJAX or Flash application. (Consider how easy it is to use maps.google.com for the first time.)

Surely it will at least be that Apollo applications will run untrusted by default, and that an already-installed app will start automatically whenever you take your browser to the URL you downloaded it from?

I thought this article was about how Flex was the favored technology for RIAs (as opposed to AJAX).

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