RIFE-Jumpstart

RIFE is such a terrific example of using continuations in a web application framework that it is too bad if giving it a try has glitches from the get-go.
The RIFE-Jumpstart will use Jetty so you will want to go into the Jetty subfolder and edit the jetty.xml such that the port value is something other than 8080. After that you will reach RIFE as something like

http://localhost:28282

You simply must confirm that your OS has the JAVA_HOME env variable set to a JDK. I am using RIFE for Java5 so mine set to

i:\java5\jdk

I tried using my own ClassPath tool from LogiqueWerks to get around this by being sure to hit the right tools.jar and javac.exe but I could not escape

class file has wrong version 49.0, should be 48.0

when launching from the RIFE-JUMPSTART directory with

ant run

This also means that you must have ant in your path.
It is annoying that most HTTP frameworks install without politely asking for an alternative to port 8080. OracleXE and SUN Application Server are the latest to do this to me.
There are some good video podcasts on RIFE - one at Google is about an hour long.
If I add some RIFE pages they will be over at eclectic-pencil.com Useful links include rifers.org and a Confluence link on DWR.

a note on Polymorphism in Rebol and Oz

I have put a page on Polymorphism in Rebol and Oz with some mention of Strongtalk at eclectic-pencil

It really does not do justice to the richness of Rebol and may presuppose some familiarity with Smalltalk. All are available as freeware on the web.

If you work in JavaScript or C# there will be a lot to interest you in the trio of Oz, Strongtalk and Rebol. TiScript, for example, is a JavaScript variant which rejects prototype-based in favor of simple modules.
If you are looking at the new languages coming available for .NET and VisualStudio and want to see multi-paradigm programming then Oz is the place to start.
If you find you don't quite get Oz and the whole Emacs thing, start with Rebol.
If you don't want another way to think about web programming, just an alternative to JavaScript+CSS+HTML+whatever, download the Curl RTE and IDE.
I had been almost sold on XUL + JavaScript or XAML + C# and then I took a look at both Rebol and Curl.
In the next few days I will post something on the beauty of "Quick" Tk in Oz. If you were ever taken with Logtalk+Prolog or Datalog+RDF you will appreciate td(...) and lr( ...) as td( lr( ... )) i.e. layout of widgets is top-down and left-right...

RIA Plugins: Curl Surge versus Adobe LiveScript/Flash/Apollo

This is just an IOU

If LiveScript/Flash is thought to be the answer for a browser-based commercial software project, then surely Curl must have been considered and eliminated. Likely not.

If a captive audience of cubicle domiciled users is to use plugin-Y, then there is at least a plugin-Z that merits consideration: the Surge plugin.

The Curl case is two-fold for RIA: the 'gentle slope' and the 'one-language-mastery' versus journeymen of many languages and apprentices in more.