Rich Internet Applications / Ajax advice needed

[sharke]

I'm familiar with static web design - HTML, CSS. I know some JavaScript and have programmed in other languages before. But I'm pretty green when it comes to the whole area of designing interactive websites.

I'm planning to build an interactive music theory website that's like a desktop application. It will feature menus, radio buttons, and also interactive graphics that allow you to plot notes on a guitar fretboard, piano keyboard etc. It will draw information from a database on the server, and maybe also call some server side Python code.

So, looking around the web my first conclusion was "Ajax-based". Then I read somewhere that it's a little lame for interactive graphics GUI's of the kind I'm thinking of. "Rich Internet Application" is a word that's been absorbed into my psyche since - although I'm not quite entirely sure what it entails in reality.

Now I'm pretty sure that I should be looking at either OpenLaszlo or Flex, but I can't really get to grips with the pros and cons of each in terms of ability, performance, scope, learning curve etc. I know OpenLaszlo is free, but I also understand that there is a free version of Flex that you can use too.

Does anyone have some quick advice about what I should be looking into?

Thanks.

 

[adamblan]

Really just depends :
- If you're familiar javascript go with Laszlo, jQuery, MooTools, or Prototype.
- I'm more familiar with actionscript, so of course I recommend the Flex SDK.

You could develop the app using any of the above frameworks.