RIA, the next NEW thing? (Score 5, Insightful)

Rich Internet Applications are hardly the next "new" thing. The idea of doing asynchronous applications HTML/DHTML has been around since at least 1997. It's only the recent broad-based browser support that has led to the growth of AJAX, etc. However, trying to program an RIA that targets multiple browsers is like trying to write portable C code all over again. Thought CSS was screwed up between Firefox and IE? Try looking at the JavaScript implementation differences between the two platforms. Throw in a bit of Safari and Opera and you have all the makings of some super-gross client code.