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Web Development

Return of the Desktop


This year, some of the big boys gave every impression of having suddenly and simultaneously remembered that there is such a thing as a desktop. Google got Geared up, Adobe announced AIR, and Microsoft saw the light with Silverlight, all of which are tools to help web developers integrate operations on the Web and the desktop just a little better. That oft-repeated mantra that the web browser is the new operating system? In 2007, not so much.

But is this rediscovery of the desktop just the latest swing of some tech-trend pendulum, or is there something more going on here? While it's probably too early in this shift to make any grand pronouncements, we can at least trace its history and identify some of the key players.

The Web Evolves

The pendulum has been swinging away from the desktop for some time now.

All the way back in February, 1995, not long after Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina unleashed the first visual web browser, no less an authority than Bob Metcalfe, the developer of Ethernet, predicted that the web browser would become the dominant operating system for the next era of computing.

He wasn't alone. Pundits and academics rushed to assert that the desktop operating system was dead, replaced by the browser. This was, of course, nonsense if taken literally, but it was not meaningless. The very real phenomenon that these observers were pointing to was a shift in the center of gravity of computing, from the desktop to the Web.

The swing away from the desktop continued unabated in the succeeding decade-plus. Initially, it was all about end users, about the Web as a place to find files, information, pictures. It was static websites and file downloads. But then the Web began to be a locus of application deployment as well (beyond mere HTML coding of static web pages, that is). There were clear advantages to putting the app online. For one thing, you could ensure that everyone was using the latest version. Developing for the Web meant using scripting tools, primarily, which translated to rapid deployment. Given the speed of web connections, this did not generally result in unacceptable performance.

Adobe Flash-enhanced websites were everywhere, and the term "Ajax" was coined to capture the collection of technologies behind most of the new web apps. These things began to be less like web features and more like real applications that happened to be hosted on the Web. Google's web apps, we were told, threatened Microsoft Office, despite the fact that Google invariably insists that it doesn't use Microsoft as a guide in developing products and services.

A decade into its life, the Web became a locus not just for application deployment but also for application integration, leading to a new kind of application. In 2005, Paul Rademacher found a way to integrate Google Maps with Craigslist, convincing Google to open its APIs. This led to an ecosystem of mashups, applications assembled dynamically from online components. Small pieces loosely joined, in David Weinberger's apt phrase.

And now there is something new, or at least nuanced. The rediscovery of the desktop could be described as doing homage to the Microsoft model of (desktop) software plus (web) services, rather than the Web-replaces-desktop model of the web apps. (Microsoft's term "software plus services" is suggestively agnostic regarding the relative importance of the Web and the desktop, and tells you something about Microsoft's priorities.)

But the new thing brings with it a different center of gravity. The Web is still the hub, but the desktop is acknowledged. The idea seems to be, yes, use the user's desktop and computer and filesystem, but use just what is needed, and no more. And the emphasis in development remains on scripting, at least for the GUI.


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