UML cheat sheet

Building Rich Internet Applications with JavaScript

When I see the words Rich Internet Application, I tend to think of interactive Flash Movies, java Applets and downloadable clients that interact using proprietary protocols or web services.

Recently Google has released 2 applications that show the capabilities of JavaScript in this space. Gmail and Google Maps both make use of JavaScript in a subtle way to improve the experience of the applications be not requiring page reloads to update the information.

Frameworks like AJAX and JavaScript libraries like providing capabilities reload information without requiring the user to reload the whole page. Here are some Ajax examples.

Other Javascript libraries like those from walterzorn.com enable drawing, drag-and-drop, tracking mouse events, and in screen editing capability.

JavaScript can even be used to make great arcade style games like triglav.

Why did it take this long? Perhaps it has to do with the browser wars; perhaps it has to do with web standards. Whatever the cause, expect to see more JavaScript based rich internet applications.

Gathering Web Statistics

I recently posted an article that included a link to an article on how to integrate JavaScript and ActionScript on a Mac. That and my passion for developing Rich Internet Applications (RIA) led me to look for other great JavaScript links.

I find it is good practice to look at alternatives before settling on a decision. In my case - what language do I write my applications in has led me to ask - what are the choices?

According to macromedia, the Flash is the most popular RIA language client. Their stats are heavily in their favour.

Macromedia also posts a country specific macromedia install census

What other statistics are there?

Looking from the other direction - survey websites to see what technology is embedded in web sites may imply how popular a particular technology is.

Some independent sites will post statistics like flash player access of their visitors. But how confident can you be in these statistics? The sample size is not listed, and it is very likely biased towards some segment of the web population - is it the segment that interests you?

Sample size is not a problem for Google. Browser statistics according to Google is a little old, but still very interesting.

Since we're on the topic of statistics, and you're probably reading this via an RSS feed, you might be interested in the results of an independent RSS browser statistics census

Once you have all of these statistics, you need to apply them in a meaningful way. Depending on your need, basing decisions on internet census data may also be flawed if you do not take into account internet use by region (USA)

If you're interested in more statistics and how to use them to promote your site, ClickZ has a large list of valuable internet marketing statistics and related information.

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