

Ask YC: Do you think Rich Internet Applications (Adobe FLEX, MS Silverlight) are going to take off? - Flemlord

I'm a month away from starting UI development on my current project. I'm curious whether this group thinks any of the RIA applications are going to be successful. Specifically, we're interested in Silverlight because of the way it extends the Dot Net environment into the browser.
======
codeLullaby
If the RIA you are developing solves a real problem efficiently in a way that
appeals to end user, it will take off.

But the adoption rate of a RIA depends a lot on the platform you use for
development. Gmail is a succesful RIA and it uses JavaScript and Flash. The
advantage of sticking on to JavaScript/Flash over Sliverlight is that, they
are already very popular. If efficiently done JavaScript and Flash can reside
side by side delivering a great user experience. So for the time being,because
of Silverlight's low adoption rate,a SilverLight only product may not be a
great idea.

Regarding Adobe Flex, Flex its nothing more than another development tool for
churning out swf files.The end product is plain old Flash. Adobe Flex allows
rapid flash development for those unfamiliar with Flash CS3 (CS3's timeline
concept doesn't appeal to most developers). Thanks to Adobe's marketing
efforts,most people mistakingly think Flex is something RIA exclusive,while
its just a development environment that churns out Flash.

SilverLight does solve a lot of headache and reduce learning curve for the
traditional .NET developer when it comes to building RIAs.But from a enduser's
perspective, it doesn't really bring in any specific advantage. Anything that
can be done in SilverLight can be done using Flash or a combination of Flash
and JavaScript. I really dont see any enduser specific advantage for using
SilverLight, as it is now. Why force users to install new plugins , when the
existing infrastructure(JavaScript and flash) can deliver the same user
experience?

Adobe AIR is a way to convert your existing Javascript/flash/html based RIA to
a desktop app. But this will require the end user to install AIR runtime
first(approx 11 MB download). Compared to Mozilla Prism, Adobe AIR is super
advanced in the kind of desktop integration it can impart to your web based
RIA.A js/flash RIA can leverage on AIR without any tweaks.

In short, use Javascript/HTML as much as possible. Flash when you need to
integrate rich media (or functionalities that require realtime user
interaction like Chat ) to your js .I wont recommend Silverlight .

------
gnaritas
No, they won't, they'll continue to fail miserably in comparison to HTML and
JavaScript because they miss the single biggest thing that makes HTML and
JavaScript so dominant, no view source.

HTML and JavaScript dominate because of their openness and easy of transfer of
knowledge. If you see anything cool that you want to know how to do, you just
check out the source, that openness is why the web works.

That openness is also why search engines can crawl in and index things,
something RIA's don't allow. RIA's have their place, but they'll never succeed
big on the open net precisely because they themselves aren't open.

There's only one standard open method of building RIA's, Ajax! No closed
proprietary technology can compete against that. They may be technically
superior, but they aren't socially superior, and that's what matters most.

~~~
dbrush
I have to disagree. I think you misunderstand what exactly an 'RIA' is. It's
an application. From the ground up, and I can only speak on my experience with
Flex/Flash, these are applications. Google doesn't index Microsoft Office
binaries, why should it index text within any other application?

Additionally, right within the Flex dev environment there is an option to
publish the source so a user can view it. Adobe is cool enough to automate
this task where the end result is LiveDocs style documentation for your app.
This is a decision left to the developer, not the underlying architecture of
the shell it is running in such as AJAX/CSS/HTML within a browser which don't
give developers a choice.

Lastly, do you actually think that Zoho(or any other AJAX/CSS/HTML
application) will succeed or fail because one can view source? The users that
matter just don't care.

~~~
gnaritas
I don't misunderstand at all, I know it's an application, but applications can
be built with standard HTML and Ajax as well, see the Seaside/Arc framework
for a good example of just how easy this can be with continuation frameworks.

I said RIA's have their place, they'll succeed a small amount on the desktop
where they can be _forced_ upon workers, but on the open internet where they
have to compete against web applications, they'll get their butts kicked, as
they always have, because they don't force openness.

Allowing the developer the option to hide the code is a fatal flaw, people
learn by modifying examples, and that's what makes HTML/JavaScript so
unbeatable and viral. When a teenager attempts to learn to program, he'll
choose HTML/JavaScript over any RIA platform precisely for that reason, the
barrier to entry is much lower. Given the choice to hide their code, most
developers will and that creates a barrier to new developers learning the
technology.

RIA's aren't new, the idea isn't new, this is what Java was all about,
applets, ActiveX components from Microsoft, and Flash from Adobe have all been
able to do this for years as well, and they all failed miserably to gain wide
adoption. Flash found a niche doing video, but beyond that most developers
hate it.

This new batch of RIA's will fail for the same reason, in the end, users don't
want them, developers do, to protect their intellectual property. Users don't
give a rats ass about a developers intellectual property.

Users are perfectly happy with web apps that use standard controls they
understand. RIA's give developers too much freedom to deviate from the normal
conventions users are accustomed too. HTML's constraints aren't a weakness to
be escaped from, they're a strength that forces you to focus on providing
value to the user rather than the mental masturbation of playing with and
using non standard widgets that in the end mostly just confuse the average
user.

RIA's will always have their place, and it'll always be secondary to
HTML/JavaScript, unless an open standard is developed for RIA's that isn't
owned by any one company and doesn't require any plugins to run, and doesn't
allow developers the ability to hide the code from the users.

------
maxwell
I've done some stuff in Flex, and it's nice. I work with people who really
like it. Silverlight and JavaFX sound cool in their own way. And AIR makes
sense. But they seem just like a convenience to developers and an
inconvenience to many users, and don't really make anything new possible. They
might be dead ends.

~~~
swombat
"don't really make anything new possible" - hardly.

Flex allows easy integration of UI concepts like drag-n-drop, neat animations
with low cpu usage, integration of streaming media, lowered response times
thanks to model caching on the client... and the ease of development should
NOT be discounted... Users tend to like an application that exists more than
one that doesn't. Ease and speed of development are a huge bonus.

As for the "invonvenience" aspect, interestingly, I've found that the only
people who resent Flash in some way are _all_ geeks. The rest of the world is
blithely ignorant as to the difference until you explain it to them, and even
then they don't care. So, if your primary market is over-opinionated and out-
of-date geeks (rather than the more forward thinking ones who are actively
writing or learning Flex by now), then definitely don't use Flex.

If, on the other hand, you plan to target the rest of the world, Flex seems
like a good bet!

PS: don't use Flex for writing your blog or news site! RIAs are for
applications (gmail, gdocs, rescuetime, basecamp), not pure content sites
(blogs, slashdot, reddit, NYTimes..).

~~~
dbrush
Agreed. And from the above...

"But they seem just like a convenience to developers and an inconvenience to
many users, and don't really make anything new possible."

Not acknowledging your presumption that it's an inconvenience to users, the
above could essentially be said about any AJAX/Javascript framework too.

------
halo
I've been pondering this question for a while and I'm beginning to believe
that they will not become particularly widespread, and that it is foolish to
solely rely on their success for any venture.

What these "RIA" toolkits lack is two things:

* a common, unified, pleasant look and feel. The web already has this, largely forced by the own limitations and the fact that developers now know what's sane and sensible, whereas these ugly RIAs have neither of those things and seem to be a haven for poorly thought-out applications and ideas. I've seen Microsoft showing muddled pseudo-MDI interfaces, flashy visual effects all over the place and all sorts, but none of these things actually stood out as something I'd /like/ to use. They remind me more of artist portfolio and promotional sites in Flash that no-one actually likes in the first place.

* a killer app. I've thought long and hard, but I can't actually think of anything significant (and positive) that these applications allow that the current combination of technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Flash) don't already. Yes, Silverlight provides for easier development, but were any revolutions single-handedly brought forward solely through having a more pleasant development environment rather than anything actually better for the end-user? Perhaps if Silverlight provided 3D acceleration for in-browser games it'd be a different story, as it is I'm struggling.

Adobe Flex is likely to just continue the success that Flash already has but
will not make any great strides forward beyond Flash's current popularity
(which I personally expect to wane as computer speeds and browsers continue to
improve). Silverlight, despite all the resources that Microsoft are pushing
into it, I can't see becoming widespread anytime soon, but equally it's
unlikely to be abandoned by MS, so may just be left in limbo.

Of course, I probably regret these remarks in 12 months when Silverlight is
the next big thing, but only time will tell but for now I remain unconvinced.

~~~
wallflower
My killer app idea for Flex. Mail-order catalogs are wildly successful. Online
shopping is boring. Bring the catalog experience and add friend/social
networking. Think beautifully-rendered catalog pages that turn, catalog pages
that have embedded video, allow scribbled comments, tear-offs...

If anyone is serious about this, maybe we can do a prototype. Land one major
niche-catalog retailer and the rest will follow...

~~~
halo
Either you have an exceptionally high opinion of your idea or you have a
different definition of what a 'killer app' is than me. There's a huge gulf
between a 'killer app' and a 'good idea', and not being one doesn't exclude
the other.

To me, a killer app is usually a single product that creates such a buzz
around a new or previously underused technology or concept that causes a
sudden almost universal take up by both users and developers and causes long-
reaching paradigm shifts.

Google Suggest did it with Ajax, Del.icio.us did it with tags, YouTube did it
to online video, Wikipedia for wikis or even the web for the Internet. Not
everything becomes popular thanks to 'killer apps' and some innovations are
introduced more gradually (such as Flash), but they're somewhat less common
and it's generally an uphill struggle before they're adopted.

~~~
wallflower
I stand corrected.

It is interesting that you suggest that Google Suggest did it for Ajax (I
would argue that it was Google Maps that surfaced OWA-type no-page-refresh-
updates). However, I think that Ajax, like Flash is a technology. The rest of
the items in your list are more ideas/concepts (e.g. making it easy for the
average person to use technology for their own purposes). YouTube - easy
embedded videos - a difficult problem to solve - (Flash just happened to be
the enabler). And we can argue that video is/was the killer app for Flash.
Email was the original killer app (and still is).

Maybe there isn't a killer app for Flash/Flex. Since it is more of a
technology that supplements existing technology (OS integration) than a
paradigm-changing thing.

------
pragmatic
I think Silverlight would have been a great idea 4 or 5 years ago. I would
have been a true killer app for asp.net/c#. However, the Achilles heel of all
these applications is that they are not google friendly. Meaning they can't be
indexed for search. This is fine if you use Silverlight/Flash/Flex/"Acronym of
choice here" for a portion of your site (calculator, graphing, media player).

However, the learning curve for these technologies is always steep. Now not
only do I have to know php/asp.net/etc but I also have to know some kind of
rich client application.

I see the sweet spot as media player for your site. Take
<http://www.pandora.com/> for example. This is a good way to use these rich
client frameworks.

That being said, when I can't copy and paste text from these application, it
really limits their usefulness. HTML/CSS/JavaScript is a pretty good stack.
There will have to be something that really compels me to use them before I'll
divert the resources of my shop to learn/adopt/deploy them.

~~~
pragmatic
I forget to mention I work in a .net environment and I've also built a startup
(<http://whatsyour20.com>) using asp.net.

Unless you really need the features slow down and evaluate your need for
silverlight. Do you need it or do you want to use the new shiny stuff?

I don't even use the asp.net ajax framework, instead preferring jquery for my
ajaxxy stuff. Asp.net can be a great tool but I can't really comment on
silverlight as I've yet to find a real need for it.

------
scooter53080
I think there is a chance they will gain momentum. As long as there are
multiple browser vendors with significant market share
interpreting/implementing specifications, web development is going to continue
to be painful. As evil as a single-vendor proprietary platform sounds
(is?)...it sure would make a lot of things easier.

I've started looking into moving an application to flex for two main reasons:
#1 to support no javascript. As more and more ajax features creep in, it gets
harder to always provide a noscript fall-back. #2 to do away with cross
browser compatibility issues.

Some concerns that I have with Flex so far are #1 no html rendering built
in...so there is no way to leverage existing static html/css resources without
converting to flex ui (I've read that AIR comes with Webkit, but flash in the
browser does not.) #2 there doesn't seem to be good support for printing,
especially compared to simple print stylesheets. Oh, and the other huge
concern is how prohibitively expensive flex developer is.

~~~
codeLullaby
You can solve the html rendering issue to some extend by using div overlays
and flash-js-integration kit.

------
collin
I think, especially with Google Gears, the release of Air, and the coming
Love-Train that is HTML5, that HTML, CSS and JS do constitute RIA.

------
staunch
I think it's a mistake to talk about Flex and Silverlight as though they're
equals. Flex already has massive market penetration and Silverlight is barely
off the ground yet.

Given Microsoft's position it's probably a good long-term bet, but I think
it's quite early for use by young startups that need every user they can get.

------
dbrush
A few of us here have a vested interest in RIA's being successful, but I think
that success is measured more by user adoption of our work on the platforms
rather than the work of Adobe and Microsoft building the platforms.

I love developing in Flex/AIR, and I'm working on a large project now where it
makes perfect sense to use it. Obviously my hope is that it is very
successful.

My experience with Splashup is that a lot of people think it's AJAX, or don't
have any idea what it's developed in, which is perfectly fine with me.

------
gruseom
_we're interested in Silverlight because of the way it extends the Dot Net
environment into the browser._

How, exactly, does it extend the .NET environment into the browser?

I'm suspicious of claims like this. The integration of two completely
disparate technologies usually gets talked up for marketing reasons, but when
you try to build something on top of it, turns out to be unwieldy if not
unworkable. Kind of like how Krazy Glue never seemed to hold things together
the way it did on TV. :)

~~~
s3graham
Huh? You write CLR code, and much of the library you expect in those languages
is available. I think that's what he means.

~~~
gruseom
Sure, but the devil is in the details. I'd like to know more. Assuming the
Silverlight VM is not the same one that .NET apps run on, how did they do it?
Did they port the CLR to a browser environment? Is it the full CLR? Does it
support the full C# language? How does integration with the browser
environment (dom/javascript) work under the hood? How did they get it working
on different browsers? Are they completely separate implementations?

I should have clarified that I'm not criticizing Silverlight (of which I'm
ignorant) as such, just expressing general skepticism based on what such
claims remind me of. These things usually work, but only up to a point (well
enough for marketing, that is, but not really for production). If Silverlight
is better than that, I'm curious to hear more. Googling hasn't helped, because
"Creating a New Silverlight Application using VS 2008" is not what I'm looking
for.

~~~
Flemlord
It supports the full C# language and many of the component libraries.
Silverlight is essentially a plug-in that can run in any browser, and there
are extensions for different operating systems. (Apple and Linux soon.)

~~~
gruseom
Thanks for responding. Are you using it for serious development? Have you
learned anything interesting about its DOM/Javascript integration?

I ask because for the problem I'm working on, a full Silverlight app wouldn't
make sense; but if it were possible to use the Silverlight plugin to work
around some of the bottlenecks we've encountered for Ajax development, I'd be
interested. Given that most of the bottlenecks have to do with rendering in
the browser, though, I imagine this is a long shot.

~~~
Flemlord
I'm about to use it for serious development. We're planning on using it
exclusively so I haven't paid much attention to how well it will integrate
with Java. My feeling is that we'll be able to develop a much richer front-end
in Silverlight in less than half the time it would take in Java/Ajax. Plus we
won't get weird lags and delays, and we can do more extensive multi-threading
type stuff.

~~~
gruseom
What kind of app are you developing? I'm not asking for proprietary specifics,
just wondering what it generally is, and what makes you think Silverlight is a
good fit for its UI (in addition to development time).

------
tx
I hope not. I hope there will be _standardized_ way of doing hardware-
accelerated 2D/3D graphics, H.264 video and Ogg vorbis sound on the web.

[http://kontsevoy.blogspot.com/2007/11/on-flash-and-new-
techn...](http://kontsevoy.blogspot.com/2007/11/on-flash-and-new-
technologies.html)

------
wallflower
Similar to Google Maps jumpstarting AJAX, I believe RIA will take off if/when
a big player like Amazon or Google adopts it.

Adobe is trying to get Flash into the Fortune 500/Enterprise with Flex but I
think Ruby on Rails has a better chance (and they are different types of
technologies)

~~~
scooter53080
It was interesting a few months ago when Yahoo maps moved from Flex to AJAX.
I'm assuming the problem there was the mashup factor. I think using one of
these RIA platforms creates (or at least give the impression of) a walled
garden, which is not what people want on the web these days.

------
einarvollset
Nope. What will be successful is RMA: Rich Mobile Applications.

~~~
wallflower
_Very_ interesting perspective on why Flash is not yet on the iPhone

[http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/07/08/gone-in-a-flash-
mor...](http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/07/08/gone-in-a-flash-more-on-
apples-iphone-web-plans/)

