title: What is WCF RIA services?
body: <p>I hate MSDN's site for WCF RIA services. It does not say what it is, it only says what it does. It says what it can achieve but does not say why I need it. </p>
  
  <p>For example:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>"A common problem when developing an
    n-tier RIA solution is coordinating
    application logic between the middle
    tier and the presentation tier".</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Well, it does not mean much to me.</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>"RIA Services solves this problem by
    providing framework components, tools,
    and services that make the application
    logic on the server available to the
    RIA client without requiring you to
    manually duplicate that programming
    logic. You can create a RIA client
    that is aware of business rules and
    know that the client is automatically
    updated with latest middle tier logic
    every time that the solution is
    re-compiled."</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>So does it download DLLs from server? Is it a metadata describing the rules for the data?</p>
  
  <p>So what is it? Is it just a VS 2010 add-on for RAD? Or is it a technology on top of WCF or underneath it or what? Where does it live? With data, with server, what?</p>
  
  <p>I appreciate if you can summarise this for me please.</p>