Rev and the Disappearing Desktop: A Focus Shift

[Dan Shafer]

I sat down this morning to write a new email segueing off the topic  
of whether the desktop is disappearing or not and focusing on the  
question of how Rev could play in that space as it emerges. This  
allows us to abstract out the discussion about whether I'm right or  
wrong predicting the rapidly approaching ubiquity of AJAX and RIA  
apps built around general- or special-purpose Web browsers (what I  
called "thin clients" that, as Richard Gaskin pointed out, may not be  
so thin after all). Instead, we can focus on where Rev might play a  
key role in this new technique as it emerges.

And then Andre wrote:

> I think there's a market for AJAX Development Tools, many people  
> want to start to code with AJAX but there's no nice friendly  
> environment yet. Also could dashboard widgets qualify as AJAX?

Absolutely. I see two possible applications for Rev in the emerging  
world of AJAX and RIA development.

First, there's what you suggest here, Andre: the creation of a tool  
for building such apps. Now there's a very interesting paradox here  
isn't there? Should such a tool exist as a standalone app? Or is that  
so inherently self-contradictory that it's: (a) a bad idea; and (b)  
an idea that would produce a product nobody would want to use? Good  
questions, for sure.

Second, there's the idea -- on which you also touched -- of using Rev  
to create the *server-side* technologies that wrapper and facilitate  
the development and deployment of AJAX applications.

Third, there's a marriage of those two tool approaches.

I'm willing and eager to put some serious time and even a little  
money on the table to facilitate this if we can assemble a small team  
of people who want to explore it seriously.

Any interest?



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dan Shafer, Information Product Consultant and Author
http://www.shafermedia.com
Get my book, "Revolution: Software at the Speed of Thought"
 From http://www.shafermediastore.com/tech_main.html