Surfing technology waves.
(as originally written on Jun 3rd, 2010)
As in many other areas of life, technology has very interesting cycles.
And like real waves there are many other smaller waves that will ripple in harmony or perhaps at a different frequency. Many of these waves are not easy to catch or even spot on, and like those good wave surfers, it takes years of practice and a bit of natural talent to work with its mechanics.
I have been very close to some of those cycles, and able to identify a clear alternation.
Take for instance, the rich/thin client paradigm.
Green screens
The first cycle – I became aware of – started with the early days of computing on mainframes where terminals (thin clients) were used to access computing resources.
The benefits were shared access to large – back then – computing resources and relatively quick response times (only limited by the mainframe’s own capacity), some of the limitations were on the rudimentary user interface and unavailability of local data as the datacenter held all computing resources including data.
Objects in the wire
The second wave came with the “client/server” movement (rich client), during early days of networked desktop computing, some examples of these were technologies such as CORBA. At the time the benefits included distribution of computing resources, where part of the processing will take place in the client and other aspects will be managed in the server side. One of the drawbacks was the inherently complexity associated in its deployment, maintenance and its complex development.
Web 1.0
In the early days of the Internet era for the first web applications, the third wave came, this time with simple html forms and thin clients (web browsers), advantages were single centralized deployment, simplifying application upgrades and less desktop requirement, we give away a rich interface and the capability of keeping easy access to local data in desktop apps towards a web browser environment for applications.
Web 2.0
We entered another wave about four years ago with Ajax (web 2.0) and more recently with rich UI libraries that have presented the current state of the web app: desktop like functionality.
Mobile Native Apps
I believe we are in the early stages of yet another wave where computing power in mobile devices swings back to a local (mobile native apps) in our smart phones, that would match the current state of the web apps.
The next wave
I can appreciate more of these cycles occurring in parallel to these “thin-fat” client wave, but those are better reserved for future blog posts.
Can you tell what is the next wave that is coming?
Posted by sontiveros on Thursday, September 30, 2010