Matt Prokes

Alpha Edition!, e-mail spelling/grammer/topic suggestions to mattprokes@gmail.com

The Professional Developer Series
Volume 2, Web Development
1.5 Web Development And The Future
Page: #28

Browser based desktop applications is an area of software that I feel has not been fully realized yet, we still have yet to see any real killer application which will drive the wave of innovation. What are these applications? Well many of the applications that you get today for your computer comes on cd’s, or sometimes they are downloaded from the web regardless traditional pc applications require installation on your pc. Browser based desktop applications, also come from the web but rather then having to install and run the software on a windows,mac,linux,etc computer these applications run from a browser environment instead. Thus any computer that supports a browser will support these applications.

Well that’s what web applications are, how are these applications different? Well they are not; except for one specific quality, a person able to run these applications from their computer when the computer is not connected to the internet. How cool is that? So imagine twittering about something you did today from your netbook in the park, and the computer updating your account as soon as it is able to get on any internet connection. This is the core focus of browser based desktop applications. They are not exclusively for the web and they are not exclusively for the desktop, rather something in-between that syncs up with the net when required but it is by no means necessary.

This is the future of how applications will be delivered to people. There is already well known technologies out there that do this as well as some not so well known ways of doing it without additional plug-ins. Some examples of technologies that allow you to deliver webapps offline include.

1. Adobe Air
2. Google Gears
3. Java Applets/Web Start
4. Javascript, through certain development techniques, and sometimes frameworks (dojo) discussed later in the book.

The advantages of delivering browser based desktop applications has everything to do with keeping software up-to-date, control of the software, as well as other things such as the ease of delivery vs. traditional methods. These applications do not always require installation and some may be installed as easily as hitting “File>Save” on your computer. From the perspective of a online company these technologies are very very useful because it will allow customers to use the products even more frequently then they already do. Finally, browser based desktop applications are a much better solution if you are trying to develop software that is cross platform all of the technologies listed above offer a well rounded level of compatibility across platforms making them excellent solutions maximizing the potential of a software product.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these technologies, in fact all of the technologies listed above require the customer to install a specialized plug-in just to work (EXCEPT the javascript based applications). Another disadvantage is that you may not always be able to achieve 100% market penetration, this is because any of these technologies can also be turned off. Although, as the internet progresses this is becoming less and less of an issue, it is often attributed to neo-paranoid system administrators (not as many of these as say 5 years ago) this isn’t as big issue as it used to be. To be honest, most system administrators will just ban your site on their network if they do not like what you are doing (which is reasonable, you shouldn’t playing at work anyway!).

We will be going through how to build Offline Air, Gears, and Javascript browser applications later in the book.

Tags: web developer 1.5

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