2. Why This Project

 Documentation Summary

 Page Summary

At this time, RIA (Rich Internet Application) developments may be based on AJAX (essentially a DHTML + HttpRequest framework), XAML/Silverlight (from Microsoft), JavaFX (from Sun), or Flash technologies (Flex 2+ or Lazlo).

AJAX frameworks are very dependent on browser implementations; every web developer has experienced the infamous "your application does not work with blah browser version xx". XAML/Silverlight is not cross-platform, is expensive, as you need a full .NET developer station and server, and requires Windows Vista® or a huge upgrade of Windows XP®. JavaFX is a promising but emerging technology and relies on a client Java Development Kit (JDK) plugin.

On the other hand, Flash-based applications rely on the Flash browser plugin technology, so the advantage is not immediately obvious. There are still some very strong arguments in favor of this plugin dependence:

• It is easier to convince individuals and organizations to upgrade a plugin rather than an entire browser.
• Flash is widely adopted and the upgrade process is fast and easy.
• Flash, at least Version 9, is truly cross-platform and renders contents exactly the same on Windows/Apple/Linux computers.
• Flex 2+ comes with a very rich set of components, is mature (based on previous versions from Macromedia), extensible, and very fast.
• Flex 3 is, or will soon be, open source.
• Flash-based applications allow you to draw anything you want in a canvas, such as points, lines, charts, etcetera. XAML/Silverlight or JavaFX can do that, but AJAX applications need either an additional plugin (e.g., SVG with IE) or a server-side image generation.
   

Granite Data Services gives you a free development framework for creating and deploying Flex 2+ applications in an EJB 3, Seam, Spring, Guice or POJO server (such as a full JBoss/Hibernate application server or simply a Tomcat or Jetty servlet container).