Todd I think that is where the pitfall with RIA lies. Sure I could design an RIA by myself. I've got extensive CF experience, very comfortable with CFMX and remoting as well as Flash/Actionscript.
But when we take an application out of the traditional browser, which the general consumer has _slowly_ grown comfortable with, we lose a lot of the structure and barriers. A very small aspect would be the multiple colors of active and visited links. From bookmarking and copying shortcuts to form controls; the general user has become familiar with these devices. When creating these applications is a flash-only environment, you are taking all familiarity away from the user. Every application will be a completely new experience to the user. Things that they were comfortable in the past no longer exists and a user is forced to learn how to use each application on their own from scratch. This is why usability has suddenly become a more predominant issue. Personally I wouldn't feel comfortable at all deploying an RIA that only a designer and programmer developed. I would want a usability expert to spend just as much time, if not more, than we spent coding and developing the application, to ensure a user will be able to use it. Although and RIA can be developed with a very small team, I'm weary of the overall effectiveness. Again, I'm not trying to bash MM for forward thinking. I'm merely trying to figure out why there is a concerning amount of malcontent among MM developers. Adam Wayne Lehman Web Systems Developer Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Distance Education Division -----Original Message----- From: Todd Rafferty [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 6:56 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: The New Macromedia Website At 05:08 PM 3/6/2003 -0500, Adrocknaphobia Jones wrote: >My underlying issue is that Macromedia is very fickle. I can't tell you >where they are going to be in a year. Which mean I don't know where I, a >MM developer will be in a year either. Then don't upgrade? Keep the current version you have and remain a happy camper? Don't do any RIA development. RIA is nothing more than MM trying to set a trend. You can either jump on the trend bandwagon or you can look for another trend. Currently, where I work ... we're developing our first RIA website for a lawyer firm. Basically the whole public side is going to be done in flash. We're also offering a low bandwidth side, not because we have too, but because we realize that not everyone wants to jump on the flash bandwagon and I showed my bosses that it is entirely possible to build both the static and flash site at the same time using the same CFCs. We have one flash developer in-house that has never done remoting before in his life and ... right now, he's making it look all too easy. He's enjoying it, it's something new for him. So far it has NOT increased ANY additional time or money necessary for us to complete this website. It should be launched by the end of April and everything is right on schedule as it stands. It will be using CFMX for the backend/admin and Flash MX/Remoting/CFMX for the front end. So, it's a choice... either your clients want it or they won't. Either you will do it or you won't. Just one man's opinion, ~Todd ---------- Todd Rafferty ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) - http://www.web-rat.com/ Team Macromedia Volunteer for ColdFusion http://www.macromedia.com/support/forums/team_macromedia/ http://www.devmx.com/ ---------- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=4 FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Get the mailserver that powers this list at http://www.coolfusion.com Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
