Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: What's the Future of Desktop Applications?
MrNaz writes: Over the last fifteen years or so, we have seen the dynamic web mature rapidly. The functionality of dynamic web sites has expanded from the mere display of dynamic information to fully fledged applications rivaling the functionality and aesthetics of desktop applications. Google Docs, MS Office 365, and Pixlr Express provide in-browser functionality that, in bygone years, was the preserve of desktop software.
The rapid deployment of high speed internet access, fiber to the home, cable and other last-mile technologies, even in developing nations, means that the problem of needing offline access to functionality is becoming more and more a moot point. It is also rapidly doing away with the problem of lengthy load times for bulky web code.
My question: Is this trend a progression to the ultimate conclusion where the browser becomes the operating system and our physical hardware becomes little more than a web appliance? Or is there an upper limit: will there always be a place where desktop applications are more appropriate than applications delivered in a browser? If so, where does this limit lie? What factors should software vendors take into consideration when deciding whether to build new functionality on the web or into desktop applications?
The rapid deployment of high speed internet access, fiber to the home, cable and other last-mile technologies, even in developing nations, means that the problem of needing offline access to functionality is becoming more and more a moot point. It is also rapidly doing away with the problem of lengthy load times for bulky web code.
My question: Is this trend a progression to the ultimate conclusion where the browser becomes the operating system and our physical hardware becomes little more than a web appliance? Or is there an upper limit: will there always be a place where desktop applications are more appropriate than applications delivered in a browser? If so, where does this limit lie? What factors should software vendors take into consideration when deciding whether to build new functionality on the web or into desktop applications?
The fact that this question gets asked basically every year should more than sufficiently answer the question.
Sorry, in my experience these web based applications are crap, and they started around the .com era where suddenly everybody thought everything belonged on the web.
The "problem of needing offline access" most certainly has not been solved, and not all of us want our data in the cloud.
If the web browser is going to become our operating system, we're fucked -- because we'll all be running garbage code which covers some of the use-cases, but which generally has terrible interfaces as we try to shoehorn every problem into something which doesn't lend itself to the web.
Many of us have lamented the move to web-first technologies as a byproduct of lazy corporations writing mediocre software.
If you think the end of desktop applications is nigh, I sincerely hope you're wrong -- because the endless stream of crap web pages which almost work is getting tedious.
And it mostly ends up in greedy corporations more worried about analytics and advertising, than writing usable software which actually solves the problems.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
In the 80s and 90s. X terminals and the like. Sooner or later the users want their power back. It will be interesting to see what happend this time around.
Not surprisingly, we neither trust our web browser, the company providing the software, nor the network it all operates on. The majority of things I use my PC for, I am not ready to release to "the cloud".
While I'm glad that hollywood starlets think the cloud is safe enough for nudes, all that proves pretty thoroughly it's not safe for anything important.
Please, understand this categorical statement: I DON'T WANT YOUR FUCKING CLOUD SERVICE.
I do not want to rely on an internet connection to generate any trivial document.
I do not want even my meaningless documents stored "in the cloud", much less anything any private or commercial value.
I'm uninterested in making something simple, quick, and reliable into something complicated with more points of failure, slower, and unreliable (that in the meanwhile makes me dependent on you, and paying you for the privilege).
So no, stop asking.
-Styopa
Richard Stallman covered this subject in detail, it is important reading: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html
I am surprised this would even be asked here. The fact is, if you care about security and privacy, you dont want to use anything other than desktop apps. You want to avoid anything such as Google Docs for your normal letter writing and so on. One area of confusion is that people have problems drawing a distinction between which is where you share things that you want other people to see, versus a tax spreadsheet that no one else should see. With the social networking the material is sort of not private anyway and you want to share it so little is lost by putting it on a server farm, and it is necessary that it be shared with others so the server farm facilitates the communications.
With a desktop application where you are working on tax spreadsheets or working on other things that will not be shared, there is no need to put it on a server some place else, so why do it? In so doing you give up a huge amount of potential privacy, increasing the technical possibilities of a possible access of the material on the server farm by other entities.
Using this cloud stuff you lose control of your data. The cloud provider could pull the plug on the service at any time (and it happens, look at Google Code and Geocities and the vast store of information that was lost with that).
Using the cloud for office apps is basically not necessary for what you are doing, since when you are writing a document for local use, or working on spreadsheet data, there is no technical need to use a cloud service to do this, and by doing so you endanger privacy and your control over the data.
Whats really going on here is an attempt for large corporations to nickle and dime you and monetize you, perhaps by the minute, to use their software, while if you use an open source desktop app, you have unlimited use of the software for as long as you need at no charge.
Secondly, open source is all about users being able to control, modify, run and expeiriment with the code they use, and being able to read it. Using apps on a server farm takes away the users control over the software they use, as it does with taking away users control over their data.
Avoid Software as a Service like the plague.
Sure, most folks just want their facebook and online shopping... most of the time. However, there is still a not-insubstantial percentage of folks who want to have a means of using their computer while it is off the network.
And there are some people for whom that is not a want but a NEED.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
The computer of a programmer working on the design of a new piece of classified military hardware isn't going to be able to connect to the open Internet. If the security of the system is sufficiently important, the machine may not be allowed to connect to any network at all.
No. And the "trend" referred to here is 99.999999% junkware. Slow junkware. Junkware that typically invades privacy and/or bombards with ads. You can't compete with my image editor. You can't compete with my word processor. You can't even compete with my text editor. You can't compete with my SDR software. You can't compete with my database. You can't compete with my media center. You can't compete with my fish tank controller. You can't guarantee that you, your ISP, my ISP, the connection(s) between them, the name servers, the competition for bandwidth at any one (or more points) will work to my satisfaction. Or at all. You can't even promise the app will BE there (cough, Google, cough) when I need it. Or that it will work properly in my chosen browser. And you're almost *certain* to screw it up so badly that it does all manner of things with rollovers, popping up garbage ads and menus without an instantiating click or drag or keypress from me.
And the other .000001% ??? Minimalist web-apps that never, ever hold a candle to a real app running on your own hardware.
Seriously, even the *speculation* is ridiculous.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.