Why should we be excited about RIA? What's the big deal? Some people have reductionist attitudes toward new technology, focusing more on how something is the "same ol' stuff" instead of focusing on the new aspects the technology brings to the table. Strides forward in software technology are usually evolutionary instead of revolutionary which makes it easy to succumb to this reductionist perspective. Software borrows from the successes of the past and improves upon the failures. The revolution, if it happens, is in how the technology is used. Arguably the largest world changing technology in our lifetimes is the web, and this is just an evolution of the Internet via a new application layer protocol (HTTP), a markup language (which evolved from SGML), and rendering engines to display it. Some dismissed it as "nothing really new" or thought it had nowhere to go. Why should we have gotten excited about the web, if it was just (apparently) a few minor steps ahead of where the technology was at the time? Others embraced it, and now look at where it is. The web is such a great example because we can see where things are now. We know that HTTP, HTML and a few web browsers enabled the world to change.

New software, such as what we're seeing in the RIA world, is all about enabling something new / making something easier. It doesn't matter if software is truly innovative (which, if we define too narrowly, is significantly harder to achieve than most people realize) or not. The focus should be on what we can can do now that we couldn't do yesterday, or what we can do now that was hard to do yesterday. This perspective is far from original, but it's useful to bring to the front of our minds as we consider where RIA can go.

So, what really are we gaining? As I mentioned in my previous post, I see RIA as a shift in perspective. Website designers being able to develop desktop applications, and .NET developers being able to use their skill set for desktop and web user interfaces, both without massive retraining, enables people to contribute their expertise in new ways to the applications that are developed. We're bridging worlds that co-existed but weren't as blended together as they are now. The technology is enabling this blending. JavaScript and HTML and CSS are leaving the browser. XAML is spoken by both development (Visual Studio) and design tools (Expression suite). Some stuff is new (XAML), other stuff (HTML applications anyone?) is made easier. And this intersection is just the beginning (notice I'm falling into a trap of focusing on just the front end - there's exciting stuff happening in other layers too!)

Some people will dismiss what's happening as "nothing really new" or "just more technology" but the possibility is here, right now, to make this so much more. This is why we should get excited about RIA. Many people are already exploring it, figuring out what works and what doesn't. I'm not totally sure where everything is heading. I'm trying to chart a course like everyone else and people far smarter than I am are leading the way. But I can't get rid of the feeling that we're at the beginning of something significant. It seems we've come so far but that's nothing compared to the changes we'll see in the coming years. The first step, what we're seeing now, is a lot of exploration and playing with the technology to see what we can do, as we also figure out what we should do. People's approach to application design will change as high profile projects become successful and as the industry discovers and publishes best practices, etc. Security will be a big deal. How well applications are developed will affect user's perception of the technology and of the companies that build it. There's a lot to think about and there will be more people discussing it. This can be a good thing and a bad thing, but it's definitely an exciting thing.

I'm unsure if I'm saying anything useful here or not. I do know that I'm a code junkie and am rather surprised I have two opinion pieces on RIA within a week. I love implementing the things I imagine in my head, whether I'm making money off the code or not. So far I haven't discussed code much with WPF/Silverlight/etc. I need to change that on here, but I want to contribute something useful, so stay tuned, I'll get there as soon as I can! Thanks for reading.