In the last couple of years it's been pretty evident that end user applications have seemed to become stale in the amount of features they bring to the table. Which has left a lot of room for innovation, so where has it all gone? Well, like most technologies over the last few years its gone to the web, with the development of powerful scripting languages such as PHP, ASP, and JavaScript, web developers have the tools necessary to create web based applications that are just as powerful as there client side brethren. Want more proof? Over the last few weeks tons of new web based applications have been popping up using AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) to create applications that were once thought of as just client side applications, are starting to move to the web. Application such as Instant Messengers (
read previous post) to full blown office productivity applications (A list can be found
here). With all of this development have come a lot of changes that may change the way software is developed, sold, and deployed.
One may ask why didn't this come sooner or why it's happening at all?
Well that's a more complicated issue that may be discussed another day, but the short answer would be because the tools to create such applications have finally matured to a level that makes this kind of development not only feasible but simple.
So does the future of software development rest in the hands of Internet giant's
Google and
Yahoo? It might but don't count on client side applications to go the way of the dodo bird. The bottom line is that client side applications will always been needed for people who need a greater reliability and performance, for anything going from high quality media to intensive simulation software. Having stated that understand that companies like Google and Yahoo are making great strides in providing as many of those services to you through their web services, and the hook is that a lot of these services are "free".
Check back later for my continuation on this topic
