You probably should have included server-side developers as that is where many RIA developers are coming from. I was a server-side developer (Java EE) but I never considered myself a "web developer".

Hi Rich,

I didn't find any of the options quite on point to accurately describe my career prior to RIA.

One option you might add is client-server application development.

To be really precise I was (and still remain) hardcore on the server side of client-server.

So for me what might be most precise would be DBA. (DBA as in both DataBase Administrator and DataBase Architect.) So certainly not "a traditional desktop developer" ;-)

I think that there are a handful more like me out there.

Like you, I came to the web with application servers (initially Microsoft ASP, but ultimately finding a happy home with ColdFusion and Java).

I really came to RIA big time when Flash got the "firefly components". http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/firefly_components.html

Now, in addition to being a specialist in data driven applications on the web, I and our team also include all things video.

With Flex/Flash being the current defacto standard for delivery of video on the web, I am truly in seventh heaven on all three letters in R-I-A. Rich (video, data, animation), Internet (lightweight yet still very powerful distributed client UIs leveraging robust backend SOAs over the network), Applications (data, video, realtime interactivity, FMS, databases, RAD, cost effective solutions that people and organizations can really use).

Other backgrounds I see in my RIA life include Java developers and streaming media specialists.

Great survey.

g

I picked other, wasn't sure if CF was RIA or not. I was doing it before RIA was a term, so figured not. LOL

I was and still am a journalist. Developing RIA's is a small component of my career that enables me to showcase my work in highly customised and interesting ways, tailored exactly to suit the project at hand.

And way, way back, I used to be a desktop software developer, writing big, commercial, shrink-wrapped Windows desktop apps in C++ (now I'm Mac only).

Hi John,

That is kind of funny because CF definitely was not RIA in the past, but now with all of the AJAX and Flash additions, if you are using them, I suppose it could be.

Like Natasha above (hi Nats!), I was and still am a journalist. A photojournalist. Also like Natasha, I was once a software developer writing commercial shrink-wrapped applications in C++.

When the chance arose to go beyond thumbnails and slideshows, I began to develop fully fledged RIA's to showcase my work, using back-end databases to collate information in new and interesting ways (such as maps that scroll to the location of the image (my own mapping software, pre-dating google etc); supplemental info from external news sources; 3D; and many other means.

I'm a software engineer / technical architect. I just happen to use some technology which is labelled RIA.

The history of my technology focus is roughly...
- 11 years ago -> MDL (ANSI C for MicroStation, see http://www.bentley.com/en-US/ )
- 10 years ago -> MDL + Java + Applets
- 9 years ago -> J2EE
- 3.5 years ago -> J2EE + Eclipse RCP
- 2 years ago -> J2EE + Server OSGi + Eclipse RCP
- 18 months ago -> J2EE + Server OSGi + Eclipse RCP + Flex

not to break the trend but i was in trucking prior to this ;)

What was I doing before 5-7 years ago? Developing RIAs. Java applets, Omnis webclient, DHTML have been around a lot longer than this season's latest buzzword.

There is an option for Flash Animators, but sadly no option for Flash Developers / ActionScript Programmers. So I got confused, whether I need to select Web Developer or Others. Web developer could be a broad concept. Coz it may include other web technologies also. So I finally ended up using Others.

Anonymous,

Would you really say that the applications you were building over 5 years ago with DHTML were RIA? I agree that DHTML was around, but in my experience it was used mainly for navigation or effects and not full applications.

Brijesh,

I agree that there were a small handful of Flash developers that were building applications over 5 years ago, but most Flash users were creating animations, intros, banners, etc and not actual applications.

> I agree that there were a small handful of Flash developers that were
> building applications over 5 years ago

Yes, I was one of them, out of necessity. It was a challenge working with a slower, muddled, inconsistent language, with no quality frameworks, slower computers, and trying to suck pretty much the same size resources down yesterday's slow internet connections. And annoying quirks around every corner, each of which could potentially consume days of time.

Today I work with the PureMVC framework. I have my own extensive code libraries based on design patterns, all powered by a substantially improved, faster language, with expanded features and a radically faster internet. I can now put together in hours what would have taken a month back then.

One of those apps (my first ever Flash program) won me an international award of sorts, and a British national newspaper editor called it "the future". Most of my memories of writing it are of me on my hands and knees, arguing with Flash out of frustration or crying after a week of hunting down one bug. LOL.

Long live AS3+ and Flash 10+

I think there were a lot of flash developers creating ria's from around 98 to 2002. Also a lot of DHTML or javascript developers created apps using either a small swf or applet as the data conductor to the back end during that time, usually using polling and a heartbeat timer.

One large field that I believe will fetch you a lot of yes votes is educational software. There were a lot of IconAuthor, Authorware and Toolbook developers (and director developers though it was more like flash, originally designed for animation) that were developing ria's for education in the early and mid 90's (around 13 years ago) sometimes the applications were for training and other times they were for tracking and managing training, sometimes they used custom plug-ins and sometimes they used the browser with the applet/swf trick, but there were certainly a lot of them and they included everything that apps do today.

A lot of this kind of training today has been taken over by large aggregate sites (like ElementK) but back then many companies and governments were developing their own in house solutions, so there were a lot of folk doing it. Basically as soon as flash4 came out within a few months it was being used for RIA's by this field out all over the place out of necessity (and to not have to have users install the authorware or toolbook plug-ins which were huge for typical modems).

Another category I'd put in your list is client server developer as I've come across a lot of folk who would fit that description. Perhaps this is similar to traditional desktop developer, but I think of "traditional" desktop apps as single user apps saving their data in files like word or excel, but where client server apps were much more like ria's.

Count me as one of the eLearning/CBT folks. I worked at various eLearning companies (including Element K) using mostly Director, Director/Flash, Authorware, Icon Author and Toolbook. I am still developing eLearning solutions, but with RIA capabilities.