Balancing Ajax and RIA

RIA (Rich Internet Applications) is highly demanded nowadays. We have to admit that we’re not just content with simple information online. We’re looking for better interaction, faster response, and smarter browsers and programs that could virtually do everything. Various programs have been created to cater to these needs. Just in time for these demands, Ajax has been developed ensuring better interaction and the ability to create a good program without having to rely on bandwidth for data transmission.

Ajax and RIA has been seen to work together however, it’s not necessary that Ajax has to be used for an RIA application. RIA on the other hand doesn’t have to rely on Ajax to create a good application.

So where do you draw the line and what cases should you forget about RIA and concentrate on Ajax? We take a look at some of the situations where an RIA is not necessarily an Ajax based application.

1. Office Applications – Creating simple programs for office applications should always be limited to Ajax but not necessarily an RIA. One great example of office productivity is e-mail. Take for example, Yahoo Mail and Gmail. The latest version of Yahoo Mail has emulated the outlook powered by Adobe AIR while Gmail has used GWT (Google Web Tookit) to develop their e-mail. Since Gmail has limited the information to e-mail without other advertisements and links, it has fared well compared to Yahoo Mail.

2. Online Collaboration Tools – Although office applications is very important to be highly interactive. A great example of this program is the Zoho collaborative tool. You’ll be able to use so many tools to get people to interact with one another. Ajax is used in this project in real time bases but speed is not just the important part, tools is as important with this tools.

As you can see, Ajax is needed in simple programs that rely on speed rather than function while RIA relies on the things that you can do with the program aside from speed of the application. It’s correct to think that Ajax could actually be an add-on to an RIA. However, you have to consider that Ajax also has the ability to create an RIA on its own without using programs that can render RIA (Such as JavaFX and Adobe AIR) without using a single code from Ajax.

Developers are now faced with this challenge: how to render a good looking Ajax without overdoing it. Without experience, developers could still develop a strong Ajax based program but the end result is a program full of functions but has greatly compromised in speed. On the other hand RIA could be rendered with so many flashy functions but has actually forgotten about the essential function or will also slow down the operation of the program.