The javascript library was created to develop web applications for hospitals. Basics of the project take their roots in early 2001.

Rialto is a toolkit for Single page application, so all the scripts are loaded at same time. SPA are acceptable for corporate applications but it is not acceptable for web site.

In a corporate environment SPA is acceptable because :

1. bandwidth of networks are large (Louis-Philippe arguments are good)
2. after the first connection to the application, javascript libraries are stored in the cache,

Yes it is. For example it is possible to use a Rialto PHP front end quering a java back end.