Some help to take the right decision for the selection of a RIA Framework

I have just read an article from “The Server Side” referring to a person making a review of RIA frameworks: http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=50829 (the comments derived are more interesting than the article itself) . The most annoying thing about that review is that one article from that site, with so much influence in software industry, is only based on an opinion from a guy (Director, sorry) based on how much time it took to him to use the framework easily. Too brave for me, sure!!. I must agree that is a very interesting factor to keep in mind in order to evaluate the usage of one or another RIA framework, but not the most important one. At least in my opinion.

Framework

 

If you want to resolve one particular issue, you can think about a development of a fast (and frequently dirt) application in the scope of a project. Don’t consider the maintenance costs, upgrading, support of the framework and so on. These are the kind of issues a Service Provider is not used to consider, but the future owner of the application should to deal with once the developer has gone after finishing the project.

 

I think there are more important things one “architect” or “designer” of a company should consider. The previously mentioned about history and roadmap, support, experienced developers, integration with other frameworks and installed base are important points to keep in mind. Obviously easiness to use and user experience are key factors as well to help taking the right decision.

My advice is to make a table of key factors and, depending if the decision is for a particular control or a non-important application vs the future architecture for all the applications in the company, give different weights for each factor:

• If the application is trivial or the usage of the RIA framework will be marginal, give more weight to the user experience and easiness to use.
• On the other side, if the RIA framework will be an “implementation reference” for the future applications, take other things in mind. Considering the support, base installed and so on will be crucial.

 

I wish it helps.

 

Ciao!!