The Disappearing Desktop - It's Real This Time

[Geoff Canyon]

On Nov 13, 2005, at 11:12 PM, Graham Samuel wrote:

> I want to know, are we looking at a 'paradigm shift' or an addition  
> to the spectrum of possible app technologies or what?

AJAX generalizes to this: an engine stored on the user's computer  
accessing program code and data from a server on the internet. The  
engine is (supposed to be) general enough to support a broad spectrum  
of applications.

Now note the similarity -- Revolution can be used as: an engine  
stored on the user's computer accessing program code and data from a  
server on the internet.

The advantageous differences are:

AJAX -- there isn't just one engine: multiple web browsers supported,  
some open source.
AJAX -- the engines are on just about every modern computer.

Revolution -- a reasonably complete set of UI widgets.
Revolution -- a more application-like interface: menus, command-keys,  
etc.


Sort of a wash, depending on whether you need this, and whether you  
trust the application creator:
Revolution -- data and code can be more easily stored on the user's  
computer, during and between sessions.
AJAX -- applications can be used more freely without worrying about  
the security of information on your hard drive.

Anyone who can think of other _general_ differences between web  
applications and Revolution applications, feel free to add them. But  
apart from what I've listed above, I don't see much difference,  
really. Not that what I listed isn't significant, just that I think  
web apps are simply browsers moving toward Rev's functionality. It'll  
be interesting as they work toward persistent data. It'll be _really_  
interesting when someone ships a browser that supports widgets, or  
lets you override its menus.

What would be _most_ interesting would be if something like Ken's  
StackRunner managed to be classified as a web browser, got publicity  
like Firefox (or even Flock: www.flock.com), and achieved 10%  
penetration in the world at large. Then we could pressure Google to  
port gmail. It would only take, what, about a week? ;-)

gc