Rich internet applications or RIA is widely used in the Web nowadays. When we say Web, that’s money. I need money and I need to know how to develop unique web services through RIA. Emerging technologies like Adobe Flex/AIR, Silverlight/WPFe, XulRunner, JavaFX and OpenLaszlo are on the front of developing rich web services. And Hey! I need to master or even know some percentage on one of these platforms.
It’s been also months of observing/trying some of these platforms.

I started watching over Silverlight. The first application that closely related to Silverlight is Expression Blend. Of course, the usual me, I started looking at tutorials and tried it all. I was really impressed on what Microsoft did to Silverlight. It is surely a Flash Killer but not for now! Maybe 10-15 years from now, hehe. Silverlight is not even close to the Flash Player. Microsoft also doesn’t make friends with Open Source Linux, so I made a big PERIOD to Silverlight.

Next is Adobe Flex/AIR. Adobe really got me into this. It’s a great technology but of course, I also had my reasons on why I tried Flex:

1. So many told me that this is the best platform for developing RIA.
2. The internet keeps on blabbering about Flex
3. I was infected ****cough ***cough

At those months that I’ve been into Flex, I was on my own on learning the platform through reading ebooks and blog articles. Those **cough that “Flex is best”, “AIR is so great” and that so many are using Flex/AIR. I can’t blame these people because the platform furnished by Adobe is really really powerful. Looking from ActionScript 3.0 in combination with MXML plus Flex Builder 3. With this Eclipse based development tool, it made the collaboration of developers and designer much more powerful. It’s really a good choice as a working environment on developing RIA.

Ok Flex is great. But it isn’t the platform for me. I don’t know why I left it. But maybe because:

1. I’m not comfortable working with ActionScript
2. I don’t like working in Windows the whole time (Flex builder and AIR for linux is not mature enough). I felt like home when I’m in a Linux based OS.
3. Seems like I’m forcing myself to learn the platform. Not learning by my own will.
4. I was just ***cough ***cough.

So I’ll just back off on Flex/AIR for now. What’s next?

The next thing that made my eyes really shiny is OpenLaszlo. It is another competitive platform going with the RIAs but OpenLaszlo is a different beast. It consists of it’s XML and JavaScript language similar to MXML which is the LZX Programming language and the OpenLaszlo Server. What I really like about this platform is that, you can deploy your apps into two different methods without degrading any quality. These are through SWF and DHTML. OL doesn’t have it’s own IDE like Flex Builder or Expression Blend. But still, this platform amuses me than those commercial IDEs. What? Yeah I’m so amused on using GEdit.

OpenLaszlo is all open source. Of course, just like the old days, I installed it here in my UbuntuStudio. Even though this platform received a lot of criticisms that came from so many people. The the documentation still made me comfortable on going with it.

I don’t know why I love open source so much. Really! I really really don’t know what’s going on about me that every open source project I see over the net seems to intrigue me. I often read topics, articles, that’s closely related to open source.

If you’ve reached this line on reading about this post (Hai, salamat naa jud diay nagabasa sa akong blog). You may think that I’m going to be a Jack of all trades. Well I’m not! My brainfsck always thinks > Specialize! I want to be a web developer/designer with a market value… Well someday. And I need to focus and concentrate my self on being comfortable on what I chose to learn. And now I surely commit myself to OpenLaszlo. I’m comfortable and doesn’t have any complains about it, so GO! GO! GO! OpenLaszlo!

Ohhh btw, here’s an image of proof.

Hope these comes earlier than expected.

1 Comment

1. Cesar Noel S. Quinon:
   

   I just downloaded Open Lazlo in Action ebook. Care to share knowledge on your Open Lazslo experience

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