OpenWeb 06/21/2012 (a.m.)
Good discussion, but it really deserves a more in-depth thrashing. The basic concept is that a perfect storm of mobility, cloud-computing and HTML5-JavaScript has set the stage for a major, massive shift in application development. The shift from C++ to Java is now being replaced by a greater shift from Java and C++ to JavaScript-JSON-HTML5. Interesting, but i continue to insist that the greater "Perfect Storm" triggered in 2008, is causing a platform shift from client/server computing to full on, must have "cloud-computing". There are three major "waves"; platform shifts in the history of computing at work here. The first wave was "Mainframe computing", otherwise known as server/terminal. The second wave was that of "client/server" computing, where the Windows desktop eventually came to totally dominate and control the "client" side of the client/server equation. The third wave began with the Internet, and the dominance of the WWW protocols, interfaces, methods and formats. The Web provides the foundation for the third great Wave of Cloud-Computing. The Perfect Storm of 2008 lit the fuse of the third Wave of computing. Key to the 2008 Perfect Storm is the world wide financial collapse that put enormous pressure on businesses to cut cost and improve productivity; to do more with less, or die. The survival maxim quickly became do more with less people - which is the most effective form of "productivity". The nature of the collapse itself, and the kind of centralized, all powerful bailout-fascists governments that rose during the financial collapse, guaranteed that labor costs would rise dramatically while also being "uncertain". Think government controlled healthcare. The other aspects of the 2008 Perfect Storm are mobility, HTML5, cloud-computing platform availability, and, the ISO standardization of "tagged" PDF. The mobility bomb kicked off in late 2007, with the introduction of the Apple iPhone. No further explanation needed :) The HTML5-Cloud Computing-SOA phenom had been cooking, but needed that financial collapse fuse lit before it could take off. Needed the mobility too. The other factor is that of tagged PDF standardization and the explosion of the Visual Document productivity phenom that followed. The key here is that Windows "compound documents" were the primary fuel of the client/server computing era. The transition to cloud-computing could not take place until these legacy business systems could continue operation with a more effective compound document model. Tagged PDF blasted open the entire transition model for compound documents functioning as cloud effective "Visual Documents". Think through the DropBox "sync-share-store" methodology and you'll get this. Keep in mind, we are at the earliest stages of this great transition from client/server to cloud-computing. The Visual Document model is transition phase only, but that will last a good twenty years. And that's my two cents! summary: The advent of HTML5 along with the move to mobile and cloud computing are conspiring to cause a major shift in the application development landscape akin to when Java displaced C++ as the major enterprise programming language 15 years ago, according to a top Oracle development executive.
- - By Gary Edwards
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