Google Earth - Rich Client or Rich Internet Architecture?

[W1ld0ne74]

Is Google Earth a Thick Client (Rich Client) application or a Rich Internet
Application? If you read the Microsoft Architecture Guide 2.0, they seem to
thing GE is a Thick Client, along with any application which is not rendered
in a web browser, or on a mobile device?

I think GE is a perfect example of a RIA, together with Microsoft's Virtual
Earth (VE) (Now Bing Maps). The fact that GE is not rendered in a browser
shouldn't be the defining characteristic for not making it an RIA. Otherwise
the Thick Client Architecture just has to sweep up too much.

Give me your opinions and tell me why you say so.

 

[Family Tree Mike]

Is Google Earth a Thick Client (Rich Client) application or a Rich Internet
Application? If you read the Microsoft Architecture Guide 2.0, they seem to
thing GE is a Thick Client, along with any application which is not rendered
in a web browser, or on a mobile device?

I think GE is a perfect example of a RIA, together with Microsoft's Virtual
Earth (VE) (Now Bing Maps). The fact that GE is not rendered in a browser
shouldn't be the defining characteristic for not making it an RIA. Otherwise
the Thick Client Architecture just has to sweep up too much.

Give me your opinions and tell me why you say so.

My opinion is, that Google Earth is a great application, and trying to
determine if it fits into buzzword slot A or B is rather silly.

Clearly GE is a thick client, because you need the GE app to run. If
this precludes it from also being in slot B (RIA), then so be it.

Mike

 

[W1ld0ne74]

Mike,
this has nothing to do with the fact that GE is a great application or not.
(I'm personally a big fan of both GE and VE.) From an Architecture
perspective, however, this is a very important question. I am in the process
of creating an Architecture guide for my company and this question does need
to be answered to make all future planning and building of software simpler
and more focused, rather than writing garbeled peices of code in all types of
different patterns that eventually becomes known as a system, but which is
totally un-maintainable.

According to Microsofts Application Architecture Guide 2.0, and RIA has to
run inside a browser but via extended functionality such as SilverLight which
provides more functionality than the default browser can supply.

The question I would like to answer is wether a stand-alone WPF app can also
be called a RIA (Rich Internet Application if it's business logic components
are exposed as services on an application server (or set of servers/farm)?
Surely the fact that it runs in a browser should not be a prerecuisite to be
an RIA.

Take a look at this image:
http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/brada/WindowsLiveWriter/Whatis.NETRIAServices_8178/image[4].png
on this page:
http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2009/03/19/what-is-net-ria-services.aspx

Even the Java community is confused about this. Although the following post
is a little unclear, it does raise the same question and the author seems to
have the same thoughts I have:
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/robogeek/archive/2008/07/thoughts_on_ric.html

Any thoughts?!?

 

[Patrice]

Try :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Rich_Internet_application#Disputed

AFAIK RIA is still mostly seen for application running in a browser with a
desktop like experience. Google Earth runs on your desktop so this is
desktop application even though it uses internet to fetch its data...

In particular I would avoid to classiy in the same category an application
that needs to be installed on the user machine and an application that can
run directly from the browser ( in some cases, with a runtime environment
that needs to be installed before either directly from a browser or using a
setup program).

I would stay away from jargon. If you are unsure of what it is those who
read you won't likely either. Just be explicit i.e :
- how is the runtime environment delivered ?
- how is the application delivered and updated ?

Is it done directly from a web browser or do you have to run a setup program
? This is likely something you'll take into consideration rather than how an
applciation uses internet behind the scene...