The Disappearing Desktop - It's Real This Time

[Dan Shafer]

On Nov 10, 2005, at 10:12 AM, Chipp Walters wrote:

> Then there is the ubiquitous 'Web Services.' They have been touted  
> by the press and media for the past 5 years as the 'new  
> technology', yet we still see very little in the way of open web  
> services available to write apps around. Certainly not the  
> cornucopia the analysts led us to believe was coming.
>
I don't know what analysts projected a cornucopia (good word!) of Web  
services platforms, but there are quite a number out there. Virtually  
all of the app servers can be viewed as such platforms. The fact that  
something hasn't yet been done or done right doesn't make the  
fundamental notion wrong, only the timing perhaps.

> And your notions about 'specialized browsers' and discounting  
> Andre's server development issues so quickly only points to the  
> great hurdles which AJAX still has to make, currently with no  
> visible roadmap.
>
Andre has a server developer's perspective on this and it's not that  
I discounted it quickly or lightly, just that it has to be seen for  
what it is: a single-perspective take. Again, I'm not interested in  
defending AJAX (or for that matter Laszlo) per se. The *concept* of  
thin clients running Web services-based applications has the  
endorsement and attention of a broad range of developers, big and  
small, and is starting to get some serious traction. Lumping it in  
with all that has happened in the past may be illustrative and may  
help it to avoid some of the known pitfalls but it doesn't diminish  
its future potential or validity.

> My suggestion, is try and develop a full AJAX application, then get  
> back to us on what you find. My gut tells me it's a lot more  
> difficult than doing the same in Rev. For me, just like the other  
> mentioned technologies, I'll wait and see.
>
I plan to do just that. And I hope a LOT of people wait and see. That  
just gives this old gray-haired techno-weenie enough of a head start  
to stay ahead of the stampede when it does come.

> (Let's see, to develop in AJAX, you probably need to be an expert  
> in the following:
> Javascript
> HTML
> CSS
> PHP,ASP or JSP
> SQL
> DOM XML
> cross-platform techniques
> cross-browser techniques
> ODBC
>
I agree with the first four items. It's not clear that you need to  
grok DOM XML at any depth because the XMLHTTPRequest object abstracts  
a lot of that stuff out and lets you use InnerHTML to update DOM  
components so that all you really need to know is the name of the  
component to be updated.

As for cross-platform and cross-browser techniques, I don't think  
those are as big issues as they seem. If you assume the user will  
live with a browser-based UI that isn't identical to his desktop  
platform, that issue gets eliminated. Cross-browser techniques are so  
far almost zero because once you've established that the browser  
understands the XMLHTTPRequest object -- either as a standard part of  
the environment or, in the case of IE, as an ActiveX component --  
you've pretty much eliminated MOST (though surely not quite all) of  
the browser dependencies.

And I can't imagine that understanding ODBC would be necessary at all.

Also, I think it's important to point out that to write ANY decent  
interactive Web content, you have to understand the first four things  
on your list -- or team up with others who do. So that's hardly a  
compelling anti-AJAX argument.

To undertake serious app development in Rev, you have to master a  
fairly broad set of technologies, techniques and skills as well. I  
don't think that makes Rev an unusable environment.

> Wow! That's a lot.)
>
> I, too, like the idea of very thin clients. But as you know,  
> they've been tried before, and before, and failed. Perhaps the  
> underlying reason they fail has nothing to do with software  
> availablility, but rather the requirement for some users to work  
> 'off the net' and most users to 'own their own data.'
>
I think this has been a problem of the absence of a critical mass or  
tipping point. And I think that point is about to be reached. That's  
what this whole discussion is really about. I don't disagree with any  
of the analyses that have taken place here with respect to where we  
have been in the past or where we appear to be today. My vision is  
fixed on the future. The day is soon coming -- if it's not already  
here -- when there will be orders of magnitude more server-based  
applications than Rev applications. I just want Rev to play a  
legitimate and visible role as this emerges.


> best,
> Chipp

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Dan Shafer
Technology Visionary - Technology Assessment - Documentation
"Looking at technology from every angle"
http://www.eclecticity.com