JD on EP

fell the same with "SilverLight" and Flash:
http://www.actionscripthero.com/blog/2007/04/silverlight_vs_flash_a_sematincs_fight.html

Hi JD, 'Rich Interactive Application' was a term coined by Ovum, not Microsoft.

http://store.ovum.com/Product.asp?tnpid=&tnid=&pid=35397&cid=0

[jd sez: Documented Feb06, not prior to Mar02, so this translates as (and I'm admittedly putting it roughly) "Don't blame us for obfuscating common technical terms, 'cause we found someone else who did it before us." Such a trivial point, to say "RIA" stands for something else, and yet, there it is, in all its staff-wide consistency. ]

And you are of course correct, applications by their very nature are interactive - that does not make them rich however.

Jon, Microsoft UXe

JD, I don't think I implied that the definition from Ovum was prior 2002, apologies if you felt that was the case.

I think this redefinition is more the case of if the shoe fits wear it. Rich Interactive Application more accurately describes the broad technology portfolio available today (WPF, Flash, AJAX, Silverlight, Gadgets, Apollo etc), not all of these are web technologies.

Andrew Shorten (Microsoft) and Waldo Smeets (Adobe) had this very discussion in regards to Andrews post... http://ukwebagencies.wordpress.com/2007/04/14/2007-the-year-of-the-ria/ which offers references to both Ovum and Ryan Stewart. There are some good thoughts and comments from both parties.

Jon, Microsoft UXe

"I think this redefinition is more the case of if the shoe fits wear it."

What a crock. By such logic I could say that ".NET" stands for "Not Entirely True", and that the big MS news in Vegas was renaming the Sparkle plugin as "Silverfish".

At some point you've got to get out and interact with the rest of the world, and there are definite longterm incentives against such inward-looking myopia.

Pathetic.

The news is that MS has been able steal most of the attention with that single announcement. You have asked for their attention, they gave none, but obscured months of spin and PR in a single day. Unfortunately the product is there and is ready and unexpectdly available for real on multiple platforms. After a short test I should admit that it is very powerful and graphically offers a lot more options than the Flash rendering engine.

Since Adobe like to hurt themselves a lot, the only news that come from them was that finally video producers can enforce commercials to be played before users can watch any video....

this of course has been very welcomed:

http://slashdot.org/articles/07/04/16/1613204.shtml

At least Flash was only a runner in the list of the 20 most annoying things:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130638-page,4-c,techindustrytrends/article.html

@ Endry -

I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but seriously man, do you have a point? Do you ever back up your assertions with data?

"graphically offers a lot more options than the Flash rendering engine."

How?

"but obscured months of spin and PR in a single day"

Huh? I can't even parse this thought. I'm sure you are trying to take as swipe at Adobe, but I can't figure it out.

Do you mean months of Adobe spin/PR? Can you find me months of spin on the Adobe Media Player? Philo, the prior codename of AMP, was mentioned on a handful of blogs, but that hardly qualifies as massive PR. As if Microsoft didn't market the hell out of wpf/e over the past year? If I have to hear "Just wait for MIX' out of one more mouthpiece ....

"Since Adobe like to hurt themselves a lot,"
Again, no idea what you're getting at.

"the only news that come from them was that finally video producers can enforce commercials to be played before users can watch any video"

Such a willful distortion of facts can only be achieved by a true zealot.

Again, many content producers force advertisments before web video today, regardless of codec / media player choice. Regardless, this is an OPTION for content producers - everyone from MTV to Ask A Ninja - if the market hates it, then people will stop doing it. And I daresay that a Slashdot posting is not a true reflection of consumer trends on the web.

"At least Flash was only a runner in the list of the 20 most annoying things:"

Endry, I respect your right to an opinion and I am glad you have the courage/ego to post this on the blog of an Adobe employee - discussions are better with dissent. However, I wish you would bring better arguments and back up your claims with data. You are a technologist, clearly intelligent, and obviously understand the web - you know that Flash, like any other tool, can be used for good, bad, or annoying applications. It's up to the developers.

Yes, poorly made, intrusive ads are annoying, whether in Flash, AJAX, GIFs, or WMV. It's not the tool, and you know that, so don't pass along news-lite nonsense like that PCWorld "annoying list" as anything other than a bored writer meeting a deadline.

Steve, do you expect me to hightlight all the differences between the two? Clearly not in a single post. One for all: Silverlight allows to create a fill for a shape using another shape (a pattern), you can't do that in Flash without hacks. Colors are specified with a wider gamut than sRGB. It is possible to use hosting OS controls or build your own, Flash only allow to use custom ones. I can go for a while, but probably you will then accuse me of pasting stuff from MS pages.

The spin I was referring to is the one that is costantly surrounding products not even released like Apollo, unfinished and incomplete but already touted as something that will change the world. PR and spin is also getting the very same Flash player, change its name and call it Adobe Media Player, pretending it is a different product. This is also what I mean when I say "Adobe hurting themselves", Flash is touted as the Kool Aid for everything no matter what you want to do, Flash in a way or the other will help you according to Adobe and its numerous in-house bloggers. I agree that tools are good/bad depending on the use you make, but certainly the announcement made today by Adobe is not going to encourage good use, please have a read at these posts and comments, these are your users too, not just me, just affirming that because it is Slashdot it doesn't matter it is the equivalent of saying that anything blogged by Adobe employes is worthless as they will never criticize the company/products. In all honestly I do really start to think this is really the case.

jd:
You're just annoying now. Interactive vs. Internet? that's what you're running with?

Question: Has anyone from Adobe bothered to contact Jeremy for an update on the whitepaper and get his thoughts on where is vision was back then to where it is today and beyond, given so much has changed since then?

Or

Is it much easier to run with his words, as if they were the 10 commandments themself and form a religion around RIA... me I’d be going for the follow-up... just a thought since we're all academics and unpicking silly wording posts :)

-
Scott Barnes
Developer Evangelist
Microsoft.

Gosh, who are these guys, and what makes them tick? ;-)

Recap: Microsoft is degrading the term "RIA", trying to disassociate it from its roots by attempting to redefine it. It might still be just naive obliviousness, but it's looking increasingly like a conscious deception.

Why don't ya'll just do something good, yourself, instead?

jd/adobe

@ Endry -

" very same Flash player, change its name and call it Adobe Media Player, pretending it is a different product"

It's hard to engage in a discussion when you are making strange statements like this. It is clearly NOT the very same Flash Player. It's an advanced Apollo application with support for SMIL playlisting and UI composition, application skins embedded in FLVs, and media RSS subscription, and various modes of content protection, just to name a few.

You attack Adobe for hyping unreleased products, yet you have no problem dismissing and criticizing these same products - again without every having seen them! At least the Adobe folks who are excited about the technology have seen Philo evolve from a whiteboard to a Beta - we may speak too enthusiastically, but we speak from having built, used, or seen these products.

I don't know you, but your writing shows that you have an axe to grind with Adobe. Every company is guilty of hyping products, from Microsoft, to Apple, to Adobe, to every Web 2.0 startup featured on TechCrunch - it's a combination of pride, excitement, hubris, and software development myopia.

"but certainly the announcement made today by Adobe is not going to encourage good use"

that is your prediction and I respectfully disagree. Technology on its own is rarely, if ever, good or evil. It's bits on a disk somewhere. We will encourage good use through education, developer conferences and seminars, articles, blogs, etc. Ultimately, however, It's up to developers to use the technology in ways that benefit their customers. And if they don't, their customers will leave.

"equivalent of saying that anything blogged by Adobe employes is worthless as they will never criticize the company/products."

Then don't read them. It's your right not to.

I stand by my statement, which is that the commenters on Slashdot are not a representative sample of global internet users. I was not dismissing them out of hand - I just think that the comments have to be taken knowing the context in which they were made.

You do, however, make a good point on the utility of corporate blogs. Can you show me some non-anonymous blogs that are critical of the companies for which the authors work? Scoble did so, before he left Microsoft. Tim Bray is outspoken, though usually non-critical of Sun. I can't think of any others. This is why I rarely read "corporate" blogs for unbiased unformation.

-steve / Adobe

Again,

followup with Jeremy Allaire, get his updated thoughts around RIA and than come back to this discussion and have a more up to date version of what RIA is really about? I mean from memory he didn't fall off the face of the earth :) and i'm sure if Adobe ask super nicely he'll give such comments.

That way it's not like Adobe are taking a think paper he wrote all those years ago and beating people around the head with it like it's gospel?

If you look at WPF you know that it nice, just in a different way then Flash. Indeed you can more stuff with WPF. But Adobe would rebuild Flash from the ground up it would be able to do such things too. Only Flash has the bother of having to backward compatible.

I have been doing some WPF this year, and I am really impressed. Nice things are done. Only WPF in Win32 apps is $#@$#@%!

[jd sez: But Weyert, what did you think of attempting to distort "RIA" like that?]

I don't agree that another acronym clearly identifies somethiong. Evertime I read RIA somewhere I think of another lobby that protect poor millionaire artists from being depredated by 12 year olds. Somebody else pointed out that not all application are Internet enabled and there are lot, even in the Flash space, which are not interactive at all, most notably demos and eye candy stuff. So, yes, for them probably Rich Internet Application wasn't thr right definition. I would move the attention to the beginning of the acronym: when you can call an application "rich"?

http://blog.brightcove.com/blog/2007/04/now_playing_wit.html

So Jeremy's onboard afterall :) (Didn't he write the RIA definition btw.. just..a thought).

Scott Barnes
Developer Evangelist
Microsoft.

I think the bottom here is that Microsoft seems to again have copied a very successful technology from a competitor, gave it their own marketing mumble jumble and along the way started telling the world how inovative this new technology is.

And what's with the name? Come on guys. It sounds like someone put Flash through a bad thesaurus and ended up with Silverlight as a synonym (maybe they used MS Word's thesaurus?).

Seriously. Why can't Microsoft come up with something really inovative for a change. Or have those days long gone?

Scott -

As a customer of both companies, 'interactive' does sound plan stupid. I've been doing interactive programming for over 25 years. What, M$ must change the second word for RIA, just to be different? Too many acronyms and just plan marketing baloney. I'm more concerned about the merits of Flex/Apollo vs WPF / WPF/e. Microsoft needs a way to distribute its plugin very fast or it will be worthless. Adobe must push its Apollo plugin at a fast rate also. I personally like the use of 'Apollo' since I work in the space industry.

@tom, beside using vectors and framed animation to render GUI, graphics and so on, what exactly has Microsoft copied from Flash? SilverLight is not only a player but offers API to not only control playback but also create and modify content on the fly from actual code. You cannot embedd the Flash player in an application and synthesize UI with, the UI has be defined before, you cannot simply call something like rectangle(x, y, x1, y1) from the controlling code to have some rectangles drawn on the Flash graphic canvas. It is true that you may create dynamic Flash but this requires a server side tecnology like Flex, nothing that runs on the client side or from within the play itself.

@patrick, MS has Windows Update, they can spread the plugin in no time, I bet that can reach the same penetration of Flash in a couple of months. Regarding Apollo they still have to reveal how they will encourage users to download and install it (this can't happen in the same way Flash is distributed, owing to the nature of Apollo itself), maybe the very first app that will require Apollo will be Adobe Media Player, but again, changing the terms wont change the equation, how to encourage people to download yet another player?

There's no right or wrong answer. Technically speaking, Interactive means just that, interactive. Internet is narrowing the playing field and one could argue for instance that Apollo may not fit this category given its position around empowering FLEX to go beyond the browser? Is it not fair to also say that a lot of the RIA is being used internally, behind the corporate firewall?

I do also recall people saying "RIA Apps" a lot to? i mean is that the pt2 of this blog post?

Up until this post, I really didn't pay all that much attention to the word in the middle, now i'm sitting back thinking maybe its correcting a wrong, maybe interactive is the right word instead of internet.

Yet, I say it again - go to the guy who gave it the name in the bloody first place and simply ask "Internet or Interactive, what's your thoughts". You may get a suprised answer.

Distribution isn't foreign concept to Microsoft :)

-
Scott Barnes
Developer Evangelist
Microsoft - Typed on a Windows machine, it being a house hold name and all ;)

As Bruce Chizen said in Tokio, "Microsoft, historically, has never demonstrated a commitment to maintaining a cross platform solution"

"Microsoft is a $50 billion monopolist who's in the software business. I take them very seriously"

"a $50 billion monopolist with a lot of power and a lot of money, so we're going to continue to be really good against them"

"Microsoft, historically, has never demonstrated a commitment to maintaining a cross platform solution"

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUST30090920070417

Now this big monopolist is talking about "Rich Interactive Applications"... give me a brake!

Think that, if there's not a deliberate strategy behind this, its at the very least sloppy to use the RIA acronym to convey a different meaning.

The acronym IRA would've made more sense if the focus for MS is on applications but of course that one is taken as well.

Same argument goes for Adobe Media Player, why the heck did Adobe go for that -- sure it can do some cool things but its FLV centric. Seems like a pretty blatant spin on Windows Media Player (you can rest assured that people will call both Media Player and confusion reigns supreme)

We're seeing more and more of these type of petty actions, I find it difficult to believe its just coincidence. Who benefits from this really? The open source community perhaps...

I wonder how Balthaser feels about all this talk about his patent ;)

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,000,180.PN.&OS=PN/7,000,180&RS=PN/7,000,180

Think that, if there's not a deliberate strategy behind this, its at the very least sloppy to use the RIA acronym to convey a different meaning.

The acronym IRA would've made more sense if the focus for MS is on applications but of course that one is taken as well.

Same argument goes for Adobe Media Player, why the heck did Adobe go for that -- sure it can do some cool things but its FLV centric. Seems like a pretty blatant spin on Windows Media Player (you can rest assured that people will call both Media Player and confusion reigns supreme)

We're seeing more and more of these type of petty actions, I find it difficult to believe its just coincidence. Who benefits from this really? The open source community perhaps...

I wonder how Balthaser feels about all this talk about his patent ;)

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,000,180.PN.&OS=PN/7,000,180&RS=PN/7,000,180

"you cannot simply call something like rectangle(x, y, x1, y1) from the controlling code to have some rectangles drawn on the Flash graphic canvas. It is true that you may create dynamic Flash but this requires a server side tecnology like Flex, nothing that runs on the client side or from within the play itself."

You have just demonstrated a stunning lack of knowledge regarding Flash development.

@ you say: "You cannot embedd the Flash player in an application and synthesize UI with, the UI has be defined before, you cannot simply call something like rectangle(x, y, x1, y1) from the controlling"

Do you actually know Actionscript? I am either guessing that you have not really worked with the Flash engine beyond the timeline metaphor of Flash (the authoring tool) otherwise you wouldn't make such statements.

Quite a number of people have created "add on apis" or "custom classes" solving problems such as the one you described.

If that's not what you are after here the solution to you problem:

// DYNAMICALLY DRAW A RECTANGLE --
// This function being defined as a prototype method, can be used with
// any movieclip
MovieClip.prototype.drawRectangle = function(w, h) {
var s:MovieClip = this.createEmptyMovieClip("s1", 1);
s.beginFill(0xff0000, 100);
s.moveTo(0, 0);
s.lineTo(w, 0);
s.lineTo(w, h);
s.lineTo(0, h);
s.endFill();
};
// Create a new movieclip inside which you want to draw the rectangle
this.createEmptyMovieClip("x", 1);
// Call the method to draw rectangle with width and height as parameters
x.drawRectangle(200, 100);

Of course since you are a Flash/ Actionscript developer you already know this. You do? Don't you.

Of course there is always the option that you are a Microsoft fanboy dragging down a competitors product without knowing the ins and outs.

A bit like Mac people are saying Windows XP/ Vista shit and OSX is oh so much better. Believe me, only people who have really suffered working with Win XP are allowed to make such statements. (PS: This was written and posted on a Win XP machine.)

The same Scott Barnes that recently left Adobe from where he frequently made comments about how cool Flex was, now working as an Evangelist at Microsoft and 'apparently' trying to make it look like Adobe don't know what RIA is?

Priceless.

Scott - how frequently did you use the acronym RIA whilst working for Adobe? Did it mean Interactive then or are you just being fickle?

Interactive Application

... buhahaha. What are they they going to sell us next? Driving Cars? Flying Planes?

Replying to myself - :(

(http://blogs.msdn.com/msmossyblog/archive/2007/03/02/why-does-ria-exist.aspx)

So you know what it means, why try and make it mean something else when it now has a widespread adopted meaning? That's just disingenuous.

@Tom and @Ben, you should probably reread my post, I'm not talking about what you can do from ActionScript INSIDE the player, that menas code that gets compiled down the SWF itself, but what you can do with the player itself using any external API.

The API that let you control the ActiveX of Flash are pretty much unchanged from version 5, you can make the stage displayed by the player to zoom in, zoom out, pan, advance one fram or stop, you can send and receive variables/data, but the ActiveX do not offer any mechanism to control the display list, instances objects and ultimately draw shapes, buttons and whatever directly from an API call external to the player itself.

@Endry Deloir

Flex can do this without difficulty.

Endry, I stand by my original statement. Take a look at ExternalInterface and the related Flex-AJAX Bridge.

Priceless tosh, at China TV:

"'The explosion of media on the Web is not happening as fast as it could because Flash isn't as good as it should be,' Key said. There aren't enough Website designers familiar with Flash, which is complex to learn, said Key, who worked for Macromedia before joining Microsoft three years ago. Encoding video and distributing it for play with Silverlight will save companies money, he said without elaborating."

jd/adobe

@jd unbelievable!

@Ben and Jason, Flex is not Flash, is an external component that requires a server to run, you can stand to whatever statement you like, but this wont change the fact that the Flash ActiveX cannot be scripted (repetita juvant: scripting means creating content, not only stopping/starting the playback) from JS running on a HTML page or from code (any language) where the ActiveX is embedded as a COM object. End of the story.

@John, that is clearly BS, Flash is infinitely easier to use and comprehend than Silverlight or the full WPF, but they also have different purposes. The only advantage that I see in video side is the ability of outputting at HD quality, something Flash would easily do if one day Adobe decide to drop the all software renderer pipeline and start to make good use of GPUs, you know a lot of people have already upgraded their 90Mhz Pentium I machine.

@Endry - Flex most certainly DOES NOT require a server (beyond IIS or Apache) to run. That is a blatant lie, brought about I assume by a lack of knowledge on the subject area.

Flash generated from Flex also can interop *very* easily with Javascript - in fact hooking up a method (either way) is a single line of code. There is no reason why the JS can't be hooked up to methods to draw/load content. I did this myself (my first flex app) just last night (providing a means for JS to load and play MP3).

@RJ, it really shocks me how certain people nitpick and understand only a part of the words when it is convenient; that possibily explains why everybody @ Adobe is worried about MS changing the meaning of RIA rather than what they have presented as a Flash competitor.

Because, in your opinion, ISS and Apache are not servers??? What the hell they are then? Was too difficult to understand that "server" meant something that serves you the content rather than a physical machine? And you generally have user machines installed with ISS or Apache so they can use Flex or instead they receive content from a distant and connected machine? You don't know what you are talking about.

How can you call me a liar or say that I have "lack of knowledge on the subject area", considering that your whole knowledge on the subject is what you have learnt last night with your first Flex application.... very impressive... maybe we can have some more understanding from your side when you have done your 5th or 8th Flex application.

@Endry - Flex does not require a server. And you can control ActionScript from external scripting languages, and make it do virtually anything you like. You may have to write more code to achieve that particular goal, but it can certainly be done.

@John - I can't help but feel like Adobe blogs have gone a bit on the offense since Silverlight was announced. The tone of discourse in this post, and in Ted's post yesterday (http://www.onflex.org/ted/2007/04/m-silverlight-vs-adobe-flash-player.php) has been uncomfortable, in my opinion. You guys are usually so calm and reasonable, which is one reason I like you. I certainly hope you haven't gone into attack mode over this Silverlight thing.

[jd sez: Understood, and agree. I'm focused here on the marketing attempt at redefinition of the five-year-old RIA idea.]

@Endry you were trying to imply that Flex requires FDS (Flex Data Services). Trying to claw your way back with HTTPD as an excuse, which silverfish also requires one, is just lame. From my understanding, and I haven't had the requirement to do so, so I don't know - Flash apps (even written with Flex) can be run on the desktop without a browser and without a HTTPD. They are after all just SWF files.

Just because I only wrote my first app last night, doesn't mean i haven't been reading around and writing trivial little samples for months does it? The reason I haven't spent more time on it (and I want to) is that my day job as a .Net tech lead makes it fairly difficult to do. Fortunately for both of us this hopefully won't be the case for long :) so feel free to carry on with the astro-turfing.

@Endry - As Tom points out, Flex in no way requires a server. Period. As for reading parts of people's words rather than the whole, you seem to have missed my reference to ExternalInterface, which has nothing to do with Flex. Please do further research before making such presumptive and condemning statements. I don't claim Flash to be the holy grail but let's at least debate on facts.

@John - I completely agree with Tom. There are much more tactful and professional ways to get your point across than "what a crock" and "pathetic".

@RJ - You are correct, swfs can run in the standalone player on the desktop regardless of whether they were authored in Flex or Flash.

@Tom, right, but once they are authored, whether it is Flash or Flex, it stays as it is. As per the ExternalInterface you can call ActionScript methods, but can't call drawing methods directly, which is what I was saying

@Endry

You are thinking FDS (Flex Data Services) not Flex. The flex framework generates a SWF, that can in fact be launched without any server specific infrastructure. It’s a SWF file loaded like any flash swf file. I’ve done allot of work with Flex so I for one can say that Flex does not require FDS, they are 2 distinct technologies. Flex 1.5 required the server Flex 2.0 no longer requires that. I have Flex apps that happily talk to .net back ends.

RJ is right.

You can have complete programmatic control over all the drawing aspects of the Flex app via JavaScript. It would take a little work but you can. It’s not locked down. It’s OOP dude. And you can talk via JavaScript, so you can basically do anything you want.

However that said, why would you need to talk to Flex(swf) for drawing via JavaScript.

Wouldn’t it be better to implement this stack in the platform it was intended for?

The above post is mine. Not sure whats happened there, sorry... Anyway it's my comments

"You can have complete programmatic "

directed @Endry

@Endry
"can't call drawing methods directly"

In the above pretext your are right; but you can proxy the calls.

I still can’t see why one would want to, but you could do it.

JD: If you could fix that mess up on my part I’d be grateful. Post @Endry should be Jason Hawryluk

@Endry - Not to beat a dead horse, but I want this to be clear - what you were saying was:

"the fact that the Flash ActiveX cannot be scripted (repetita juvant: scripting means creating content, not only stopping/starting the playback) from JS running on a HTML page "

The fact is, you absolutely can "create content" - instantiate new instances of components, draw new shapes, practically anything you like - from JS running on an HTML page. However, at present, you may have to write a significant amount of code to do it.

Flash and Silverlight have many differences, only one of which is the fact that the Flash Player has its own scripting language and interpreter, whereas Silverlight uses the browser's JavaScript engine. You can argue all day long over which approach is better - that's an argument worth having. However, to say that you can not control the contents of a SWF via JavaScript is absolutely false.

@John - What you wanted to discuss here was RIA redefinition. It must be somewhat frustrating to see the conversation devolve into something else entirely (thanks, in part, to my posting). My (on-topic) question: what does Microsoft have to gain by redefining the term, and who loses if they are successful in so doing? Flash & Silverlight, MAX & MIX I can understand - it's brand dilution, it's piggy-backing an established and accepted brand to try to absorb some of its brand equity. If I were Adobe, I'd have a beef with that. But RIA vs RIA?

Tom, a little frustrating, maybe, but more bemusing.... ;-)

The term "RIA" has gained a lot of currency, particularly over the last 18 months. By attempting to shift the meaning of the term, it's easier to argue "RIAs don't have to be cross-platform" or "it's okay to take the performance hit of going through the JS/plugin bridge" and the like.

If it was an inadvertent error, this would have been simple to correct. But the large number of synchronized uses of the term by Microsoft staffers this week, coupled with the resistance to acknowledging the attempted redefinition (as well as prior instances, such as "experience matters"), is contextual info which lends credence to the theory that it's a conscious marketing ploy to appropriate the term. No proof, of course, but that's increasingly what it's looking like.

jd/adobe

Wow. What a fun and totally meaningless pissing match...over an acronym? I hate to say it but it seems that MSFT had gotten under the skin of ADBE with Silverlight. Even the CEO made silly comments on it... Adobe should ignore Silverlight (at least in public) until it matters. Making a big stink about it only raises the visibility when the thread to Adobe is minimal for now. My unsolicited 2 cents.

Momentarily putting on my snide demeanor...

RIA is just another example of Internet hype nonsense among people who are breathing their own fumes. I blogged on this a week or two ago... RIA is the latest technobabblenonsense.

http://notaprguy.wordpress.com/2007/04/10/ria-the-latest-fad-in-technonsense/

Back to my normal nice guy demeanor.

I guess Microsoft skipped a search in forrester research: RIA

@Tom - I know you are trying to clear this up, but WPF/E doesn't JUST use Javascript. The plugin ships with a minimal .Net runtime to process the XAML.

I recommend to read Software Infrastructure Essentials by John R. Rymer: "This Essentials document answers the most critical questions — the what, why, and who — of the Web 2.0 market. It's a starting point for application development professionals who are planning, building, and running the next generation of application development organizations." *cough*

Oh! You'll find... ouch!... "The innovators in RIA are Adobe Systems and a set of Ajax providers."

PS: "Software Infrastructure Essentials" is a $49 document... but "If you are not completely satisfied, return it for a full refund within three weeks of your online purchase." ;)

At the time of this posting, Wikipedia has an article for Rich Internet Application, but not Rich Interactive Application. It's obvious that the meaning of RIA is established, and even if a troll decides to create an article for the new meaning to bypass my point, the evidence will still exist in timestamps or even lack of meaningful content on the new article.

@Scott Barnes
You look foolish calling JD "annoying" with no provocation other than an observation of obviously strange behavior coming from Microsoft. You're getting closer and closer to troll in my book.

Even About.com has also a Tech definition of RIA: Rich Internet Applications

I certainly have enjoyed seeing Scott Barnes and "Endry Deloir" get toasted on this blog. Thanks, guys!When I first read his posting about what you couldn't do in Flash, I was like "uh-oh I'm so sure, do I really have time to chime in and say I've actually done all those things" but it was so entertaining just seeking the Actionscript source laid down showing exactly how it's done. Talk about getting your credibility shot down! (Note to self: check to see if silverfishlining.com domain still available in the internet cloud)

*I mean Answers.com not About.com...

Well, they filed for a trademark on April 10. Why didn't they register the domain name?

How can a 100 million dollar marketing machine such as Microsoft forget to register a domain name? Beyond me.

Check out silverlight.com and you know what I mean... someone in Florida registered the name on April 16. The day Silverlight was announced.

Tom - how do you figure someone registered the domain on April 16. I know for a fact that the domain has been registered for quite some time. The Whois.org shows that it was first registed in 1996.

http://www.whois.org/whois_new.cgi?d=silverlight&tld=com

@Anonymous... you are absolutely right! I don't know why but when I did whois is came up with silverlight.com being registered to an individual in Florida. I think I might have miss-typed the name into something like sliverlight.com .

The main reason why I did a whois in first place was because I really wanted to find out more about silverlight. I thought let's just try silverlight.com... to my surprise it took me to a .Mac site on Apple.com . FYI, this has since been fixed and the user has uploaded a site to the location on the .Mac server.

@George
Doesn't look like I got toasted, I was talking about direct drawing in the canvas and somebody throw Flex in, then eventually a couple of them admitted that eventually can be done but the amount of code required is significant:

>"can't call drawing methods directly"

In the above pretext your are right; but you can proxy the calls. The fact is, you absolutely can "create content" - instantiate new instances of components, draw new shapes, practically anything you like - from JS running on an HTML page. However, at present, you may have to write a significant amount of code to do it.<

But since you're another one that came to give signficance to the discussion, patting on the back whoever thought his/her favourite toy was broken, noody will ask "Who are you?" and worry if you have a Goggle Footprint. Well done.

@Endry - In case you're genuinely wondering why someone would question your identity (and not mine, for example), I can offer some simple reasons:

1) You came to the discussion with an inflammatory tone.

2) You pretended to be an authority on a subject, yet made statements that were in contradiction with common knowledge in the professional community.

3) John already knows who I am, because I have been active in the Flash community for years, my name links to my blog, and I have a history of participation on this blog and others in the Flash world.

So please, don't be hurt. Just bring something constructive to the table, and if you do decide to try to shake things up, bring some credentials and a body of work. I think you'll find that the Flash community is very accepting of criticism, if it's constructive and can be backed up.

Signal to Noise for this thread just went a new high heh

@RJ: Like most things in our surroundings, I evolved as when I was in the Adobe space full time, I didn't know better a) and b) Microsoft didn't ship WPF & Silverlight. Not only that, but Apollo wasn't in our hands.

Technology changes and so with change comes a new understanding how things work.

Interactive is a much easier term to describe the updated status of where we are all at (both brands). As we aren't about just being connected anymore, it's greater than this as we are more focused then ever on "User Experience". At Microsoft we prefer to call this "The Age of User Experience".

http://blogs.msdn.com/msmossyblog/archive/2007/04/22/thanks-silverlight-you-just-validated-ria-wrong-here-s-why.aspx

For a full explanation of my history with the term RIA and where I think RIA is going forward in both Adobe & Microsoft.

FYI: Forest Key was ex-Macromedia to quote from the past:

"Forest Key is a senior product manager at Macromedia. In his role, he is responsible for defining, driving, and implementing releases of the Macromedia Flash authoring environment. Forest has worked in film, television, and multi-media in both creative production roles as well as in technology development. As a product manager he has contributed to the teams that developed numerous visual effects, animation, and broadcast/film software and hardware products for companies such as Pinnacle Systems, Puffin Designs, and Avid Technology. As a production supervisor, editor and animator his credits range from Star Wars Episode IV to independent films and Super Bowl ads while working at production companies such as George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic and creative studio The Orphanage. "

So no offense jd, but i'll take Forest's word over yours twice on Sunday :)

Endry Deloir, yes, you did get toasted.
Stop talking about things you dont understand - in front of a room full of experts.

lol.