Slashdot Mirror
Where is the Real Ajax/Flex Revolution Happening?
andzik writes "Even with all of the buzz around Rich Internet Applications these days, using toolsets like Ajax and Flex, most sites that utilize these technologies seem to be incremental improvements, not revolutionary interface changes. Where does the Slashdot community feel the best opportunities are to substantially create different/better user experiences using RIA tools? What will be the killer app? Are we just not seeing them because the best improvements are being made to web based applications and not in the public space?"
On a related note, Vertigo asks: "Not so long ago everybody believed that it was a good thing to have the freedom to modify your software to suit your needs or to mangle your data in any way. But now that users are flocking to non-modifiable, one-size-fits-all web 2.0 apps like Gmail or Flickr, are we moving away from our open source ideals? Those services do provide many important benefits, but in the process of their enthusiastic adoption did we not loose sight of the most important issues?"
One key question in this Ask is
Just my opinion, but I think the killer app may be out there already but in stealth form. It's mostly a question of discovery and trust, and I think both lurk right around the corner.
Just my anecdotal internet experience, but I'm migrating virtually all of my work into cyberspace and allowing internet services to manage my data and backup. I'm not completely there yet, but I've been a heavy gmail user for over a year now, and have almost forgotten how to use local pop clients (though I still do for peace of mind pop/download the e-mails for local storage -- I haven't gotten that far with my trust). And the sheer convenience of being able to "do e-mail" from any browser has been more beneficial than I'd predicted. I now have complete threads at my disposal whereas I used to find myself re-constructing threads dispersed across multiple machines (typically laptops "on the road").
Lately I've tried some of the on-line word processors and calendars, and yes even some of the spreadsheets (some of the on-line spreadsheets are very responsive and offer functionality 99% of excel users typically tap). They're not all there and ready for prime time yet, but they're getting close.
The word processors for my general use are already good enough that I'm willing to do my word processing on line and let "them" do the management. I wouldn't even consider (not that I did anyway -- I'm an OpenOffice user) any of the pricey Microsoft Word Processing/Spreadsheet options. Again, the side benefit, almost unexpected, is the universal access to my work with NO effort, just a reasonably current browser.
So, from my perspective, that's the "killer app"...: the security; the ease-of-use; the convenience; the cost; the true benefits reaped from a net where your data is created and managed in the internet "cloud" (sorry about all of the "quotes").
(As for the one-size-fits-all, I think the eventual internet app winners will be those who provide the functionality with the flexibility. And if you shop around you'll find these on-line versions seem to providing reasonable (maybe not complete, but reasonable) flexibility)
instead of complaining about the lack of killer apps, maybe you should be out building one.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
most sites that utilize these technologies seem to be incremental improvements, not revolutionary interface changes.
I like the idea of AJAX being used to enhance applications, not completely rebuild them.
If I wanted to do something like change the menus/site navigation I could already hose up the browser's controls with a flash based site.
If i want to do a quick validation in a form against a remote database, I'll use AJAX
If I want to add a quick way to change a record(ex. disable a user) in a table, I'll add a link that makes an AJAX call.
If I want a text box to do a spellcheck without posting a complete form, I'll use AJAX
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
What users are you talking about? Those who use OSS or your typical Internet user?
Bare in mind that the internet, aside from the technical sites, has become a huge business, ecommerce, entertainment, and anything else that non-IT people want to use it for. The latter folks have no idea what OSS is. They just want thier music, porn, buy books, etc... And they'll use whatever canned software that is offered - they don't want to mess with code.
I guess what I'm saying (and what others have said) is that the internet and computers are just a home appliance now. Anyting that makes computers more of an appliance will sell BIG!
Saturday is April 1. Slashdot will be shut down. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Those services do provide many important benefits, but in the process of their enthusiastic adoption did we not loose sight of the most important issues?
;)
The killer app is one that automatically fixes "lose" misspellings?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I see some really nice web designs out there, but when it takes a minute (or more!) to load a page with a DSL line, then I get a little testy. And many times, I absolutely agree with you. I just want the information, the graphics/Flash/whatever do not add anything. And many times, it makes site navigation difficult because the page becomes so cluttered, it's hard to make out what you're looking for.
Saturday is April 1. Slashdot will be shut down. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Used properly, Javascript and Asynchronous JavaScript can improve the user experience.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I've just discovered OpenLaszlo earlier this week. It's a (now) open sourced web RAD system. It compiles into Flash files so almost anyone can run the apps, and it feels a lot less hacky than Javascript ever did... blasted browser wars, "standards", and all. Pretty interesting technology -- especially if you can't wrap your mind around building an application in the Flash "everything is a movie" model. The IDE is an Eclipse plugin.
I think the original point to my post was that AJAX is nice but I don't think that the standards are there yet.
AJAX is a transition point in the web's evolution beyond the browser. The real killer app is what happens when these applications' communication protocols standardise. It's not so long ago that when you wanted to run a blog, you either hand-coded HTML or had to have a server running slashcode. Now you can choose between dozens of free and non-free web apps or hosted services, and it doesn't really matter which you choose because your audience can aggregate from any of these via RSS, and view your content in whatever client they choose. I'm sure Blogger.com is still a viable business, but it's increasingly irrelevant.
Similarly, it's rapidly becoming possible to share calendaring information with others via CalDAV without caring which client and server options you and your collaborators prefer.
Whenever I do a Drupal site for an organisation I like to encourage them to set up an LDAP directory, so that they can use the same authoritative data source for authenticating to Drupal and other systems, internal address books (usable from a multitude of clients), and finely-grained control over sharing personnel data with affilliated organisations. The ability to do all this is very cool, and not at all dependant on my choice of OpenLDAP (which is, frankly, a bastard to get working), as the critical element is the LDAP open standards.
These are pretty simple examples, but I don't think it's too much to expect that open standards for interacting with applications like Flikr and Del.icio.us will emerge, along with increased choice over back-ends and interfaces and effective commoditisation of the services. Value moves up the chain, innovators move on to the next big thing, and it all starts over again.
At least that's how it should work.
Matthew.
You want to use C for web coding? The two just don't mix!
JavaScript is flexible, simple, and already has the features needed for web development (like DOM).
C is NOT the answer to everything.
We are a small web development team ( 4 people ) doing web app work to interface with our mountains of textual data stored away in our DBs ( oracle and mysql ). We used to use the traditional click/reload web app design but have recently made the switch to focusing EXCLUSIVELY on Ajaxy clients doing a lot more with a lot less development work. I wrote the framework that we use to generate Ajax logic on the fly with our scripted templating engine ( think RoR, only with a lot more power and a lot more flexible and maintainable ) and it has turned our standard application development time from about 2 weeks down to about 2 days. We have some pretty advanced stuff already.
I've gotten our applications to basically mimic a natively compiled application. Our default 'skin' is a Win2k look and feel, but I've already been tinkering with whipping up CSS designs to give us OS X looks and also some KDE looks. The templating is what gives us the most power. Automatic code generation is our best friend.
Anyone seriously working with Ajax/JS on the large scale really does need to use some kind of code generation mechanism for all of your logic definitions. The technology to power most of the cool functionality you'll need changes too rapidly to allow yourself to have a codebase that can't adapt to the changes. With 6 tools currently in production using our new framework ( that we released two weeks ago ), if we wanted to change our primary JS library ( prototype ) for whatever reason, I would change the JS logic in our 'logic generation' template and all of our tools would be up-to-date automatically.
It's really changed the way we do things.
-E
I find it very difficult to believe that you only use it for straight static data, the internet hasn't been about straight data reading for a long long time. Almost every website out there now is dynamically generated with data customised and tailored to each visitor. You are reading one right now, if you had a user you could manipulate the comments to only display the ones you want, or even the stories. You can submit and share your ideas. It's so much more than just reading a document. Slashdot itself is a web application.
I don't think I ever experience the internet before all this was possible. The internet very quickly became a way of manipulating data as well as just reading it. It was just done in a very crude way using CGI programs. AJAX is just the next step allowing us to make the process of updating and manipulating data much more transparent to the user. It allows us to converge things that used to be done by external applications into a single application, the web browser. This is a good thing. You no longer have to download Yet Another Application just to remotely manage Yet Another Data Set. Gmail and Google Talk are perfect examples of this. I can chat to my friends without having to install yet another IM application. It's all done through the web browser.
Granted that at the moment AJAX is currently undergoing it's overhyped bubble effect, but once it bursts and settles down to a more reasonable level I can guarantee you that you will probably be using it without even realising it. Just as you are currently using current web applications without even realising it.
Web documents have no place being applications
Well, yeah, by definition. But that's like saying "computers are good for calculating projectile motion, they have no business being communication devices"... it's a robust technology with multiple uses.
Flex is a popular lexer based on Yacc and not some web2 buzzword
I presume you're being deliberately obtuse here, but just in case, let me help you out: Adobe Flex 2.0
Heh, you better not rely on javascript to validate your forms. What happens when the malicious user disables/modifies the javascript? You still need to send that data to a server-side process for validation.
Using asynchronous javascript to send the data to the server and get the response is a way of saving time by drawing less of the page. But you still need to server-validate.
Web apps non-modifiable?
The source code that generated that HTML might not be modifiable. The php scripts of a GPL'd website can be modified by someone else and not have to redistribute the source because they aren't distributing the modified source. they have it sitting on some server somewhere not copying itself. Most web-apps don't even release their source code.. see digg.com, del.icio.us, gmail, etc. That's why there are open source equivalents of these.. respectively: pligg, scuttle, and the Hula Project
Brett Smith of the FSF just email me today to notify me of the Affero General Public License, which requires the source code of the site to be available to anyone who receives content generated by the site.