October 15th, 2007
RAP brings Eclipse into the Ajax framework game
I had an interesting call on Friday about Eclipse’s Rich Ajax Platform (demos here) which is releasing its version 1.0 today. Normally I leave Ajax framework news to the pros, but this one got my attention because it fits into the entire ecosystem of Eclipse. In talking to RAP’s project leader, Jochen Krause, the goal behind RAP is to let Java developers familiar with Eclipse start building rich Internet applications using the tools they already know. Because Eclipse has such a huge following, there is some value in that. Studies by the Eclipse Foundation have shown that only about 30% of Java developers are actively building Ajax applications. RAP should lower the barrier to entry and increase that number.
Competitors will be thrown about a lot. In some ways RAP is similar to Adobe AIR because it bridges the web and the desktop (in some ways). But in my opinion the closest competitor is the Google Web Toolkit because with RAP, you’re still writing Java on the server side, it’s just creating Ajax on the page. It’s actually a lot like what ColdFusion is doing with some of its form functionality in version 8.
I asked about taking an entire application built on Eclipse’s Rich Client Platform (RCP) and porting it to RAP and they said that wouldn’t be quite possible yet, but it seemed like the end goal. For now you’ll still be able to use a lot of your components and assets from the RCP in your RAP applications with all the benefits of CSS and JavaScript to skin and customize them. In the end, this is a great move for Eclipse and will be a huge boost to rich Internet applications.
More info:
Ed Burnette
Zviki Cohen
The Register
Ryan Stewart, a Rich Internet Application developer and industry analyst, recently joined Adobe's Platform Team as a Rich Internet Application Evangelist. full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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