Has Web Development lost its proposition?
Web development is popular because it's fast, versatile, and relatively inexpensive. But that doesn't mean the alternatives don't have advantages and merit of their own, and in some cases the Web's weaknesses might outweigh its strengths.With the advances of hardware processing power & software functionality, it is viable to re-visit the original reasoning behind developing applications for the web. In addition, it is viable to also re-visit the definition of web application, especially in the light of increased popularity around Rich Internet Application (RIA) models like Microsoft Silverlight, Adobe Air, and AJAX technologies - that seek to blend thin & thick client application deployment. For the sake of healthy discussion lets look at some areas where web-based applications stack up against system based programming.
- With the traditional web-application model there is a front-end thin Client UI that functions in the framework of browser. This UI handles rudimentary user input, generic input validation, graphics rendering, display of the output. The real processing happens in the middle-tier integration layer and back-end database. With the advent of cheaper processors and memory, even the bare-bones computers of today, can put an enterprise grade machine of a decade ago, to shame. Thus, we want to ask, is it time we reassessed such traditional model. Is it viable for us to shift some of the over-burdened processing load towards the front-end. With increased demand of information consumption, more and more load is being put on the integration & back-end layers, to a point where scaling data-centers to meet the demands is becoming challenging. The middle-tier also suffers from security vulnerabilities both in integration & demand load.
