Open source clientside RIA frameworks for SaaS
IBM developerWorks recently published a new article that I wrote, titled Use the best open source client-side framework for cloud computing. The article ultimately takes Flex and OpenLaszlo and puts them head-to-head against each other.
Why Flex and OpenLaszlo?
Flex is clearly the market dominator for RIA applications, and though OpenLaszlo may have a lot of catching up to do, its arguably the next best thing. In the article I do my best to make a fair and unbiased comparison, and someone even noted that I did not discuss the advantage of AMF that Flash has for data transfer. With that said, yes, it is slightly weighted to facilitate open-mindedness toward RIA and the fact that there is a legitimate competitor to Flex.
Why not Silverlight or JavaFX?
Silverlight is licensed under the tight, grubby fingers of Microsoft, who isn’t much of an advocate for open source. Not to mention the fact that although it is good with video, that’s about it… even most MS developers are not even bothering with Silverlight when it comes to RIA. Sun on the other hand, is undoubtedly an advocate of open source, but JavaFX is so immature that Sun isn’t even ready to release it as an open source product.
Can OpenLaszlo reasonably be compared to Flex?
Laszlo Systems doesn’t have the marketing dollars and community following that Adobe does, nor does it have 25 years of industry credibility behind it, so it is no surprise that there isn’t a very large community of RIA developers supporting LZX. However, one could logically assert that OpenLaszlo is “the little engine that could” to RIA, and there is only one reason I would give it such credit. The goal of LZX – the declarative syntax that is used with OpenLaszlo – is to have the capability of compiling to any format for the web. Being that it is unlikely Microsoft will release the Silverlight compiler to the open source community, that leaves us with DHTML and SWF. Of course, DHTML isn’t exactly “compiled”. Instead, OpenLaszlo generates the necessary DHTML from your LZX code for publishing to the web. The fact that it can do that AND compile to the native SWF format to run from the Flash Virtual Machine is impressive in and of itself and deserves some street cred at the least.
If you’re interested in learning more about OpenLaszlo, including how to code it, it’s history, and how it stands up against Flex, CLICK HERE to be taken to the article on the IBM developerWorks site.
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Posted by Dan Orlando on October 8th, 2009 :: Filed under Tools & Innovation
Tags :: frameworks, open source, OpenLaszlo, RIA development
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October 9th, 2009
After detail analysis and comparasion of Silverlight and Flex for our RIA LOB app, we ended up choosing Silverlight. So I would really like if you could elaborate your statements on Silverlight for RIA!
October 9th, 2009
I can only speak for what I have personally seen in my own experiences, and I have heard comments from MS developers such as “Silverlight is more trouble than it’s worth” as one particular MS developer stated. Keep in mind that this is a matter of opinion based only on what I have seen, and remember that the general population of people that I associate with are not die-hard MS developers.
October 11th, 2009
SL has learning curve. It’s almost complicated like developing full fledged desktop application; 80-90% of code can be reused (from desktop .net app). But for experienced developer it’s natural to use all that stuff, so I can’t understand why it’s “more trouble than it’s worth”. Especially with full OOP with c#, which is nice language (IMHO better for LOB than AS3). There are dynamic languages like ironRuby and IronPhyton also. For LOB RIA, currently best choice.
October 13th, 2009
Curl is another lesser known RIA alternative that is particularly suited as a front end for cloud based applications. Curl supports all the data connectivity standards including Adobe’s AMF. Because the run time JIT compiles to the hardware it offers great performance for manipulating large data sets on the client. Curl is used in many enterprise applications in companies like Toyota, Sony and Panasonic.