The Keene View on Web 2.0, Ajax and SaaS

Although the computer industry is still young, we have already seen several waves of development tools. These waves follow technology and architecture trends: new technologies like the PC make new architectures possible, like client/server, which in turn require new tools, such as PowerBuilder.

Each wave of development has had a distinctly character - either logic-based or visually based. The tools to support each of these waves have been tailored correspondingly.

While the last 8 years have been dominated by thin-client architectures and code-based tools for expert users, the rich client technologies and collaborative user expectations behind Web 2.0 argue strongly that a new wave of development tools is beginning.

Here is my take on the four big development waves:

1. Green screen (1960-1990): centralized development with code-based Cobol tools


2. Client/server wave (1991-1997): departmental development with visual-based tools like PowerBuilder, Notes, Access, Oracle Forms.


3. Thin client wave (1998-2007): centralized development with code-based Java tools


4. Rich client wave (2008+): Web 2.0 democratizes development and dramatically opens up both the responsiveness and functionality of the client with an avalanche of Internet-based widgets and services. Can today's code-based tools targeting expert Java and C# developers ride this wave? History would say no.

It is hard to remember today - when all the development tools are code based - that all the client/server development tools were visually based. Ten years ago, visual tools like PowerBuilder and Notes dominated the development world. Now, the programming world has shrunk to just two code-based tools - Eclipse and Microsoft Studio.

We believe that the industry stands on the edge of a new wave of computing, driven by the Rich Internet Application architecture. Web applications are moving from static, limited html pages to much more responsive and powerful widgets and services.

The explosion of widgets and services available on the Internet is driving a demand among business users for more useful business applications. As thing client applications get more visual, coding tools like Eclipse and Microsoft's mis-named Visual Studio are increasingly awkward.

To underline this point, a recent customer was able to re-build an application in our visual tools using 98% less code than in .NET/Visual Studio. Note that it is important for visual tools to support coding for advanced services - we are not advocating code-free development, just code-lite development, particularly for visual web applications.

After nine months of hard work, we are ready to start making waves. Over the next month, we will be introducing a product that will launch the next wave of enterprise computing. Our vision is to be the Powerbuilder of Web 2.0.

To underline our commitment to this vision, we have changed the company name to WaveMaker. And that is exactly what we intend to do!

Labels: Eclipse, powerbuilder, RIA, WaveMaker

Infoworld recently announced a new Ajax tool for Eclipse, called , RAP. While this is a logical step forward for the Eclipse community, it is an evolutionary dead-end from a Web 2.0 viewpoint.

The goal of enterprise Web 2.0 is to democratize the development of web applications by lowering the learning curve. Enhancing Eclipse does nothing to solve the fundamental skills gap between the Java "high priests" and the traditional application developers who are skilled in visual tools like Access and PowerBuilder.

Eclipse is the heavyweight champion of the heads-down Java server programming world. Ajax is the lightweight champion of the rich internet client world. These are clearly different tasks, so presumably would benefit from using different tools. Other than masochism, why would someone decide to saw logs with a hammer?

Given the cost and difficulty of hiring Java developers, putting them into the UI design role is a waste of resources. In addition, the skills that make a developer good at server programming do not necessarily translate into web page layout skills.

At ActiveGrid, our goal is to enable application developers to assemble web applications visually without needing deep technical skills in Java, Javascript, css, etc. This vision requires two components:

1. Studio for lightweight page assembly: Web 2.0 application developers need a visual and lightweight tool for assembling web pages - they need a DreamWeaver for Ajax.


2. Java server framework for seamless services integration: the web pages created by a Web 2.0 application developer should integrate seamlessly with a standard Java back end using something Json/Spring/Hibernate server.

While Ajax for Eclipse represents an incremental step forward, it is not at all clear that this is the best way to build Ajax clients. We are betting that the right tools for building Web 2.0 applications will unlock a wave of developer productivity within the enterprise equivalent to what simple blogging tools have done for web publishing.

Labels: AJAX, Eclipse, RAP