May 10th, 2007
Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Change is endemic to computer programming. That fact was part of a discussion I had with one of the managers here in Mountain View. Computer professionals tend to get wedded to technology they know, which to a certain extent is understandable. I know English very well, and though I can speak and write (somewhat) in French, I can certainly express myself much better using the language skills that I have spent a lifetime perfecting. Even so, a good programmer rolls with the technology. Willingness to upgrade one's skills is a requirement if you are going to be a good programmer.
Change is certainly in the air in web programming. AJAX had its buzz-period, but I expect that people will quickly get tired of the limitations of that environment. Something else will be needed to make web applications the feature-rich products people expect, and three challengers have stepped into the ring.
The current champion is Adobe's Flash, players for which are widely installed and exist on most platforms. It's development tools are refined and top-notch, and the technology is so popular that it has even been used to make television commercials. Given that practically no one else is developing sites using the other two technologies, at least not yet, Flash is clearly the one to beat.
Next up is Microsoft's Silverlight. Silverlight might be a newcomer, but it is built on the same technology base as Microsoft's WPF technology, the foundation for next generation Windows development packaged as .NET 3.0, albeit a subset that is easier to extend cross-platform. The biggest barriers are that few use WPF to develop web applications, much less Silverlight (formerly called WPFe), plus few have the Silverlight infrastructure installed. On the other hand, Microsoft just released its Expression suite of tools targeted at the design of WPF / XAML applications. Microsoft is also the vendor of the leading development tool suite in the world (which can be expected to integrate well with Silverlight), makes the most popular operating system in existence, and can update that installed base through one central location (the Windows Update service). Last, they have a growing web of devices that Microsoft could Silverlight-enable, if they so chose.
Last, though certainly not least, is the new JavaFX framework. Java has been around for quite awhile, though for various reasons ended up being mostly used in server development (most of my Java career was spent in server development). Even so, Java applets certainly were ahead of their time, and offered more interactivity possibilities than HTML / CSS / Javascript alone. JavaFX details are still a bit sketchy (JavaFX Script, a new scripting language designed for JavaFX, seems interesting). The broad outlines of Sun's challenge to the other two contenders, however, are clear. Java has a large body of developers from which to draw, has decent distribution (though nowhere near as ubiquitous as Flash), and as the only GPL-licensed product in the bunch, is likely to get more attention from the open source / free software community.
So there you have it, a three-way fight between the current champion and an upstart backed by the largest developer ecosystem in the world and an old-timer with new tricks (GPL license status, new scripting tools). If you don't like change, you probably don't appreciate the likely growth in importance of these technologies.
If you do, however, it's an interesting time to be a web developer.
John Carroll has delivered his opinion on ZDNet since the last millennium. Since May 2008, he is no longer a Microsoft employee. He is currently working at a unified messaging-related startup. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 05/10/07
