List of rich web application technologies [closed]

Question

I am trying to get myself acquainted with the world of rich web application. There are some comparison tables of available technologies on the Wikipedia, but I still find it unclear what are the options for rich application development.

Could you please verify and complete the information I gathered below? What are the key pros and cons of each option? Which is the best choice for big and very rich web application?

Option 1: ASP.NET/ASP.NET MVC
Vendor: Microsoft
Environment: Visual Studio
Language: C#
Output: HTML+JavaScript+AJAX
Example: www.stackoverflow.com

Option 2: Silverlight
Vendor: Microsoft
Environment: Visual Studio
Language: C#
Output: .NET executable?
Example: ?

Option 3: Google Web Toolkit
Vendor: Google
Environment: Eclipse
Language: Java
Output: HTML+JavaScript+AJAX
Example: http://www.projectkaiser.com:8080/pk/

Option 4: Flex
Vendor: Adobe
Environment: ?
Language: ?
Output: Flash (.swf file)
Example: http://listen.grooveshark.com/

Option 5: Adobe AIR
Vendor: Adobe
Environment: ?
Language: ?
Output: AIR
Example: http://www.colabolo.com/en/download.html

Option 5: Ruby on Rails
Vendor: Rails Core Team
Envirnoment: ?
Language: Ruby
Output: HTML+JavaScript+AJAX?
Example: ?

Option 6: Java Applets
Vendor: Sun
Environment: Eclipse
Language: Java
Output: Java Applet

Option 7: OpenLeszlo
Vendor: ?
Environment: ?
Language: ?
Output: ?
Example: ?

Option 8: Vexi
Vendor: Vexi core team
Environment: Eclipse
Language: XML + JavaScript
Output: Java
Example: Demo on http://vexi.sourceforge.net/

Option 9: Django
Vendor: Django core team
Environment: ?
Language: Python
Output: HTML + JavaScript + AJAX
Example: ?

Option 10: XUL
???

Answer 1

i am also looking at which technology to use i think theres 1 you may want to take a look at

Appcelerator Titanium - it allows you to develop for desktop and mobile platforms using web technologies like HTML5/CSS/JS and for desktop platform, even PHP/Python

still evaluating it too

also looking at RIA's (AIR, Silverlight, Titanium) vs Native Web Applications (PHP, ASP.NET MVC). RIA's are move powerful in the sense that it can interact with the file system and are generally faster since they exist locally. web applications cannot interact with the file system and are generally slower and has more latency involved. but since they exist on the web i can access it anywhere.

i actually wanted to settle with open web technologies like HTML5/CSS3/JS/PHP/Python but seriously considering .NET platform. C#/F#/WPF/Entity Framework/Silverlight and features of Windows 7 Overlay icons, progress bar, jump lists show a lot of potential. and the ability to use 1 framework a few languages for both web and desktop applications even RIA's is a great draw. i've also seen a lot of videos abt patterns and practices MS recommends the quality etc is fantastic it may be hard to learn at first but i think it will be worth it. the downside many will say even me is its closed source. tools generally more expensive

Answer 2

Option for python people:

Pyjamas (Google Web Toolkit) - python in compiled into JS

+any python backend (Django, Web.py ..).

All communication goes through JSON-RPC