By People, For Documents
I am not worried about Flex, Silverlight, JavaFX or some other rich Internet application (RIA) technology replacing HTML and the other standard web technologies on the Internet. The Internet’s success is because standard web technologies have made it easy for people to create and share documents.
HTML editors like Hot Dog, Front Page and others made it possible in the early days of the Internet for any person to create a simple web page and easily publish it onto the Internet. Technical savvy folks then quickly learned you did not need an HTML editor at all and merely a text editor.
Today, tools like WordPress and Blogger make it easy for millions of people around the world to publish blogs using standard web technologies. Social web sites like Facebook and MySpace allow for millions of people to create personal web pages using standard web technologies. Additionally, the most popular web applications on the Internet today, such as Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, eBay and Amazon, make heavy use of standard web technologies. Popular Web 2.0 sites, such as Basecamp, Digg, Flickr and Delicious, do the same.
These tools and applications all share a common feature. They make it easy for people to work with and view text documents. Text can easily be moved from one format to the next. It can be formatted, printed, scanned, emailed, indexed, syndicated, copied and pasted.
I do agree that browser compliance has been a big issue. However, the Firefox and Chrome web browsers has redefined what is means for a browser to be standards compliant. This and reusable JavaScript frameworks like jQuery, YUI and Prototype are making cross browser compliance a thing of the past.
The advent of Ajax only solidifies the popularity of the current web technologies for years to come. Ajax is the glue between document centric web pages and RIAs. I have seen Ajax compared to a spice. Add a little bit here and a little bit there. If you think you need more, then add some more. Because Ajax uses standard web technologies, it becomes easy to mix Ajax into existing document centric web pages, while still maintaining the essence of those pages.
Sure, RIAs have their place. Many commercial web sites seek to thrill their users with animation, special effects and advanced controls. Certainly, there is a domain outside of document centric web sites where they are needed. But RIAs will not replace standard web technologies as the dominant technology used on the Internet. Casual Internet users are not going learn how to create RIAs. They are simply going to continue to create effective, HTML based documents.
Documents have stood the test of time. In today’s high technology world, documents allow people to easily participate and share ideas. And technologies that support documents, such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript, will continue to rule the Internet for years to come.
JEvalCharter
JEval, the Java, open source, expression evaluation library that I wrote a number of years ago is still alive and kicking. Someone has taken the library and integrated it with a charting tool to create, JEvalCharter. Its cool to see that JEval is still providing value to developers out there. Its also neat to see that JEval have been getting 100+ downloads a month.