Always the web..
Posted by Eitan Wed, 08 Mar 2006 02:27:00 GMT
I'm not sure where to begin on this one as too many thoughts are flooding me at the same time.
I recall doing web intensely in the mid 90's and being way ahead of the curve with things such as javascript. In the last couple of years, I have essentially dropped out of working the web, so to speak, focusing instead on the world of Java Swing.
Does anyone remember Netscape's effort to create the perfect platform for developing web applications? It was based on client-side javascript + server-side javascript. Of course, it went nowhere and I doubt many will remember this technology. Marketing-wise, everything they did was called live-something-or-other, as in livescript, liveconnect, and what not.
In hindsight, they were sooo close! Today javascript on the client side is more popular than mickey mouse. And on the server side, we're seeing ruby fulfill what netscape was trying to do with server-side javascript. In fact, when I think of it, that would have been even sweeter: a single language for doing both client and server side stuff. That would have made things a little less confusing.
Who would have thought it would take ten years?
Another 'who would have thought' moment: consider how slowly standards development efforts in the area of css has been. Over a year ago I was asking for the abilitiy to utilize css selectors in code, like we do in stylesheets. We were asking for missing features such as getElementsByClassName. Today, ajax and prototype.js give us all of that stuff, totally short-circuiting standards; a testament to the fact that with highly dynamic languages, you don't have to wait on the language makers any longer.
Focus pays off. I have always been too curious for my own good. Had I only stuck to the stupid javascript coding I was doing ten years ago, I could have been defining this ajax wave, instead of watching it go by. There you have it, a public confession.
