Question

How do you see the future of the web development? will HTML, CSS and Ajax continue to lead the web-development or do you see a shift towards Rich Internet Applications (flex, silverlight & JavaFX)?

I am not looking for a clear cut answer, and I know you are programmers and not prophets, but a smart analysis of how do you see the current trends in web-development would be appreciated. Links to such debates on the web are also most welcome.

I am asking this question since we are now evaluating technologies for a complete rewrite of our GUI. Since it’s a relatively big (actually huge) product, we tend to do things slow. We need to consider where do we see the web is going to.

I am interested in the near future (3-5 years from now).

Answer 1

The trend in web development is to move more towards the client. This has several consequences:

• As the codebase grows on the client, a framework is going to become indispensable. You’re going to see a heavy increase in framework usage across the board.
• The server will become less and less involved with page rendering, and gradually become more of a services provider. The new stuff I build today only talks with the server across JSON-RPC, and in my personal opinion this develops faster and scales much better.

Which frameworks will “rule the roost” is hard to guess, but if I had to …

• JavaFX can be safely ignored, it’s going nowhere.
• Web apps are going to be predominantly javascript-based. For some types of apps flex and silverlight will be the chosen solution (e.g. video, games), but for most business apps the edge is just not there.
• GWT is going to become the go-to platform for enterprise java web app development.
• The number of projects that “roll their own” code is going to dwindle to near zero. It just isn’t worth the effort anymore given the quality of the frameworks out there.

Within the javascript framework subset (discounting GWT), I’m assuming the following:

• JQuery is going to remain the primary solution, but it’s going to be augmented with extensive component collections (JQuery UI), so as to match what the other guys can do.
• Dojo, YUI and Ext are going to fish in the same pond and will all do well marketshare-wise.
• Prototype is probably going to remain a major player for website augmentation, but is not going to be relevant for web apps.
• You’re going to see a few frameworks grow in marketshare at the expense of all the rest. The market is going to standardize on a few major players. This will happen primarily through the job market, with employers preferring “standard” platforms over “whatever the new guy likes”.