1. RIA for Business What‘s next? 19/11/18
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2. RIA Opportunities for the Business
Software as a service (SaaS) that works
Web 2.0 portals that are usable and efficient
Mobile solutions
SaaS: the software is provided by some external company but should be as good as a desktop application
Web 2.0 portals: employee or customer portals where it is easy to contribute or categorize information
Mobile solutions: RIA can leverage the mobile boom
19/11/18
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3. Where are we? From Fat to Thin and back again
Why was the fat client abandoned?
Deployment?
Only relevant in B2C scenarios
Configuration?
Windows made it hard to sandbox applications
Architecture?
Fat client requires distributed programming skills
Crystal ball
Alan Kay: I you want to predict the future you have invent it -> you also have to know the past to avoid repeating mistakes
Windows had problems, but they were not insurmountable
19/11/18
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4. Architecture Rich Fat Rich Thin RIA HTML Thin Client Server HTML
Engine
Presentation Logic
Data
Business Logic
Client
Presentation Logic
Business Logic
Data
Presentation Logic
Data
Business Logic
Presentation Logic
Data
Business Logic
Rich UI
Engine
Server
HTML solved the architectural problem at the price of substandard user interfaces
19/11/18
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5. Developer Productivity
Developer productivity suffered heavily with Web apps
Separation of design/interaction from programming failed
How can we pick up speed again?
Domain specific language for the presentation layer
Abstraction and gradual exposure of low-level details
Do not force developers to deal with distributed programming
Minimize the toolset (languages & tools & environments)
Testing of user interfaces has to get simpler
Just covering presentation layer development productivity
Environments: development and production environments
19/11/18
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6. Security Browser is still an insecure run-time environment
RIA needs tightly sandboxed run-time environments
Dedicated run-time environments outside of a browser are on the horizon.
Java Consumer JRE, AIR, Silverlight, Mozilla
Generic clients can help to improve security
Dedicated run-time environments can also offer a better programming model
19/11/18
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7. User Interface
Interaction design skills got lost with Web applications
Business applications
It’s more about productivity/efficiency than flashiness
We shall overcome the page metaphor
Merging Web and desktop application styles
B2C and B2B have different audiences
Tailor the user interface to the audience
Cross platform?
Web applications: how to win a marathon with just one leg and your arms tied on your back. RIA: untie you arms and run using both legs!
GUI designers had to cope with the limitations of the Web browser rather than coming up with brilliant interaction design
19/11/18
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8. Mobile Devices Mobile devices will prevail - the demise of the PC
Don’t try to simply shrink your user interface
Customized component library
Tailored interaction design
Permanent Internet connection cannot be assumed
Smartphones are already outselling laptops
Just using a different CSS is not really the solution!
Customized component library: supporting the interaction style, dealing with limited screen real estate and resources such as memory/CPU
iPhone: what sets this device apart is the user interface design. It also shows that despite a fabulous browser interface web applications are not really usable. Tailored applications
19/11/18
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10. What else? The future of Mash-ups End-user programming on steroids?
Relevance in enterprise environments?
Dependency management?
19/11/18
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11. What are the challenges ahead of us?
Architecture
Developer productivity
Security
User interface
Mobile devices
19/11/18
Copyright Canoo Engineering AG,

12. Contents Where are we? Challenges
History (Fat Client and then HTML), history repeats itself
Why was the fat client abandoned?
Challenges
Architecture
Server-side and opposing requirements (offline, desktop power)
Caching, validation, data consistency, integration into portals
Developer productivity
Too many technologies with most AJAX toolkits
Low level component libraries
Frameworks?
Cover the entire presentation layer (view creation, presentation logic, validation, data binding)
Web designers cannot do interaction design (separation does not work)
Domain Specific Languages (not just *XML)
Security
How to create a secure run-time environment as a prerequisite for secure applications (it takes more than that but it is needed for a start)
User interfaces
Know-how about building great user interfaces for client-server applications got lost with the advent of the Web applications
Educate business analysts and developers
Business: it’s about productivity and not so much about sexiness
Mobile devices
One cannot just scale down the user interface by using a different CSS!
Different component set and different view and interaction design
iPhone as an example
Varia
Mashups for business applications
End user programming
Manage your dependencies!
19/11/18
Copyright Canoo Engineering AG,