Whether to run an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) in a browser or not can be a surprisingly emotive subject. The majority of developers, if they do not already have it, want a well appointed workstation running Visual Studio (for .NET), Eclipse (for Java), Dreamweaver (for JavaScript/HTML/CSS) or similar. They baulk at the idea of running a browser-based IDE despite building browser-based applications and clear advantages to working in this way. It is worth logically and dispassionately looking at the situation.
Key advantages are:
1) Portability. Developers can work from anywhere with a web connection. Does this really happen? Offshore developers will typically have a work desktop and maybe a personal laptop. They may also come onshore for a short period and use a client desktop. If they work through an outsourcer/consultancy they may have another. This counts but it is a Dropbox like aspect of portability. Its main advantage is in supporting those lifestyle situations; when you were not scheduled to develop but – thinking about it - you can; either to get ahead or to react to real time issues – even when you are on vacation, travelling or visiting friends. There are also humanitarian reasons for being able to learn a trade and contribute without having to own even a $100 laptop but let us save that for a later post.
2) Collaboration. Developers can let others debug their code by sharing it via unique URL. Anyone navigating to that link will receive a separate, fully modifiable and executable version of the code. That means no API version inconsistencies come compile time. Real-time collaborative coding is also easier.
3) Efficiency. Hours and on larger projects – days are wasted in setting-up workstations and supporting environments e.g. source control/configuration management at the start of each project. Even if it has been done several times before, at-some-point it will fail because there are just too many variables on a desktop. This just goes away.
4) Cost. Older workstations can be used since compilation and anything else heavy is performed on the server. Cost also improved by collaboration and efficiency (2 and 3 above).
Key disadvantages are:
1) Usability. The browser is not perceived as being rich enough to accommodate a responsive editor, allow class/library management and debug. It is also impracticable to design and test a GUI due to the greater drag/drop precision required.
2) Connectivity. You need to be connected to the Internet in order to run your IDE and therefore develop. This limits your portability (1 above).
There are other points on both sides but above are the key ones. Let us hold those two disadvantages up to the tiniest bit of scrutiny:
1) Usability. Large text file editing in a responsive (next to no latency) way (the main criticism) can now be achieved using HTML5 Canvas/JavaScript. See Bespin and also Kodingen (extending Bespin and integrating with other services) for examples of this using Python/PHP/ROR. See CodeRun for an example of full-on code management using .NET/JavaScript. They are both free, quick and have clean efficient interfaces. Bespin is more of a work-in-progress and does not yet support all browsers though. GUI design is admittedly more of an issue right now but:
a. People already successfully use graphical editors in a browser e.g. Splashup, SUMO Paint and the recently Google acquired Picnick.
b. HTML5 adoption is affording more options here.
c. In both consumer and enterprise spaces, we are moving toward a widget-based UX making designing GUIs from scratch less common.
2) Connectivity. By this - offline development is meant i.e. enabling those circumstances where the developer is using a laptop (since if they were using a desktop surely it would be connected to a network?) and they are in an area of no Wi-Fi coverage (since otherwise they would have network access?). Granted this is a situation that occurs but consider further that this also means:
a. There are no collaboration or research possibilities available (no IM/no Google). If you get stuck when developing or need to clarify a technical point – you’re on your own.
b. You need a single professional and automated solution that synchronises all code, images, configuration files, media (that has previously been unit and integration tested and checked in) and also synchronises test data and potentially business rules (since it is good practice to keep these out of code). Either it will synchronise actual data/business rules in which case you need high grade encryption on your laptop (as you are likely using customer data) or your solution needs to de-sensitize the data/business rules somehow (and you need to have agreed this process with any customer). What kind of developers will be happy with these two restrictions? Only sole developers working on their own project.
Staying with the logical analysis of this, there are four decent reasons in favour of widespread use of browser-based IDEs and two against. There is also enough mitigation to mostly address the two negatives. There is clearly a significant net gain to be made. Side points around “developers won’t stand for it”, “Development is an art (it’s not!)” or “you just do not understand” etc. are emotional and really do not have a place in the decision. It is understandable (in a carpenter cherishing his chisel kind of way) but this noise is a real contributory factor as to why browser-based IDE have not made more of an impact to-date.
When their new OS comes out later this year, are Google really going to say – buy Chrome laptops, they can do everything your regular laptop can – unless you are developing? Given their long developer-friendliness; this would appear a peculiar move. Unless of course it is precisely because they are developer-friendly; that they will pander to populist developer belief and treat them as artisans needing powerful magical workstations? If they do this though – they risk confusing consumers and certainly the non-developing IT community as to their strategy at a time when they are already perplexed by what is happening with Chrome OS, Chrome and Android as a run-time environment.
Google have a new programming language – Go which currently needs OSX or Linux. Like the majority of languages today, it is C-based. It has been out for nearly a year but has not received a great deal of press. It will need a differentiator other than speed to compete (how many web applications really have a processor bottleneck these days?). Surely there is an opportunity to build a browser-based IDE for Go and enable a new generation of more casual (but also more open) developers around the world?
05 June 2010
04 June 2010
Where did those mash-up tools go?
Just eighteen months ago, mash-up tools were big. The promise of building applications quickly, with minimal development and with context directly reflected within the application (as they are made by SMEs rather than IT resources) remains appealing. They looked to be the perfect tool for civic activists and knowledge workers alike. They were high in Garner’s top ten technologies to watch. The enterprise was starting to take them seriously as a mechanism to reduce crippling data integration challenges and consumers - bored on a diet of pushing links - thought they would be fun and/or a showcase for themselves in much the same way as blogs have been.
Now, the wind has shifted and MSFT’s Popfly and Google’s Mash-up Editor are both gone. Other niche vendors e.g. Sprout Builder similarly disappeared. Of the big players, Intel Mash-up Maker and Yahoo Pipes continue. All of them attempt/have attempted to straddle the void between consumer and enterprise spaces. This is an important distinction since – mash-ups even within the enterprise rely upon an ad-hoc passionate approach rather than formal development. They are typically built at home by passionate non-programmers who want to invest time in a single non-niche tool so whatever they learn is portable (work and social/other organisations etc). Even more so than blogging (which also uses one tool across both domains) a single tool is required - as more learning investment is required. With the exception of SAP’s Visual Composer (if you are an SAP shop), none of the tools mentioned have been particularly successful in either space let alone both. Why is this?
1) No UX standards. For both enterprise and consumer, there are no standard for widgets (or gadgets or web-parts or whatever else you call discrete self-contained UX functions). There are standards for business cards (vCard) – why not widgets?
2) Slow linked open data adoption. More of a consumer inhibitor at the moment. Linked Data is a core component of the Semantic Web vision that uses a specific set of current technologies. It provides a way to readily mix-and-match data in a meaningful way and so is a key enabling technology for mash-ups. Sig.ma is a simple mash-up tool for RDF data. Unlike other data-based mashups which tend to be query-based, Sig.ma is search-based. You enter a search term, the search engine gets your data, you remove the bits that are not relevant and (if you like) re-publish the data again as RDF (or other formats). This is perhaps too simplistic for users right now but it is evolving and could become a potent research tool. Any mash-ups that rely upon open linked data (ideally the best data of all) suffer from a lack of it; although this is changing as Government initiatives in particular publish RDF data for transparency reasons.
3) Insular data integration. Although the various flavours (SOA/ETL/EII/EAI) have been core CIO agenda topics for over five years, they have been mainly confined to the particular enterprise itself; especially in the narrow form of web services and have been of limited success even there. Extranet take-up, where common data is shared between parties in the supply chain, has been leisurely and this is precisely where mash-ups are needed. Very few organisations treat meta-data with the same focus as data. This means, mash-ups have trouble vouching for data currency and lineage which detracts from user take-on. It is possible that the solution to data integration will be the Semantic Web and a greater openness of organisations to share data. If so, we will be waiting some years yet.
4) Industry standards. Have been slow to be adopted. A notable exception here is XBRL for common reporting.
5) SSO. This is not exactly an issue for consumer mash-ups; assuming you are using open linked data but it is still a huge inhibitor to data integration for many organisations.
6) Blogging comparison. Although superficially similar to blogging - mashing (if you are going to do it properly) requires a thorough data understanding and a lot more effort than committing stream-of-conscious thoughts before they float away into the ether (or linking to other peoples work). Blogging is simply an easier way to achieve microcelebrity and also - because the majority of posts are written in the first-person (I think...) they can be defended (if need be) by the simple statement - "These are my opinions". This is a segueway into a whole minefield of philosophy, politics and culture that is best left alone. People mainly do. Only a small proportion will directly challenge someone's written thoughts. Publishing a mashup however - where you are vouching for the legitimacy of the data opens you up to direct challenge (people may have provably better data) and so people resist it. Only when the number of single versions of truth in the world become smaller and more consolidated will this situation change.
Popfly showed early promise as a learning tool but never really got past being a Silverlight showcase. Its focus was on looking good (geo mash-ups and slick drag/drop) rather than data integration. It did not use RDF at all. MSFT have been slow to utilise semantic web approaches in general. Some of their media management technologies use RDF in the background but their main focus has been around semantic search through the Semantic Engine. This initiative uses recently acquired Powerset technologies and will be released through SQL Server. PowerPivot has been significantly downsized from its original Project Gemini remit which would have provided not just a potent reporting mash-up environment but the management and support processes and infrastructure to QA and promote the mash-ups throughout the enterprise. This latter point is a key inhibitor to mash-up growth in general.
There are still signs of life in the mash-up tool space. Dapper is advertising focused. NetVibes is portal focussed. Alchemy API takes a content management/annotation approach (similar to Intel Mash-up Maker). Birst takes an analytic portal approach. Jackbe looks interesting; it appears to take a sales analytics approach. Snaplogic is not exactly a mash-up tool but it certainly takes a non-technical approach to data integration. None of them really play in that sweet-spot between enterprise and consumer though.
The parallel economic downturn has influenced mash-up take-on. The enterprise essentially stopped unproven development and consumers have yet to be sold on the concept but let’s face it – the focus on one or two drop-downs for configuration and Google Maps didn’t help either. The future of mash-ups is secure because it is the future of building useful applications quickly by SMEs and that will always be desirable. Five back-end data sources (database, RSS etc.) linked to five middle-ware components (aggregation, integration etc.) and five front-end components (analytics, data entry etc.) generates 125 possible combinations of application straight off the bat. Adding tailoring through filtering, personalisation and general configuration takes in into the thousands. This simple logic guarantees a future at least in the enterprise.
Whether the name “mash-up” has been tainted by its recent hiatus and – like its raison d’etre will need to resurface as part of something new remains to be seen. We can be sure though that the next generation of mash-up activity needs to be three things in order to stick around; interactive, data focused and usable in both enterprise and consumer spaces.
Now, the wind has shifted and MSFT’s Popfly and Google’s Mash-up Editor are both gone. Other niche vendors e.g. Sprout Builder similarly disappeared. Of the big players, Intel Mash-up Maker and Yahoo Pipes continue. All of them attempt/have attempted to straddle the void between consumer and enterprise spaces. This is an important distinction since – mash-ups even within the enterprise rely upon an ad-hoc passionate approach rather than formal development. They are typically built at home by passionate non-programmers who want to invest time in a single non-niche tool so whatever they learn is portable (work and social/other organisations etc). Even more so than blogging (which also uses one tool across both domains) a single tool is required - as more learning investment is required. With the exception of SAP’s Visual Composer (if you are an SAP shop), none of the tools mentioned have been particularly successful in either space let alone both. Why is this?
1) No UX standards. For both enterprise and consumer, there are no standard for widgets (or gadgets or web-parts or whatever else you call discrete self-contained UX functions). There are standards for business cards (vCard) – why not widgets?
2) Slow linked open data adoption. More of a consumer inhibitor at the moment. Linked Data is a core component of the Semantic Web vision that uses a specific set of current technologies. It provides a way to readily mix-and-match data in a meaningful way and so is a key enabling technology for mash-ups. Sig.ma is a simple mash-up tool for RDF data. Unlike other data-based mashups which tend to be query-based, Sig.ma is search-based. You enter a search term, the search engine gets your data, you remove the bits that are not relevant and (if you like) re-publish the data again as RDF (or other formats). This is perhaps too simplistic for users right now but it is evolving and could become a potent research tool. Any mash-ups that rely upon open linked data (ideally the best data of all) suffer from a lack of it; although this is changing as Government initiatives in particular publish RDF data for transparency reasons.
3) Insular data integration. Although the various flavours (SOA/ETL/EII/EAI) have been core CIO agenda topics for over five years, they have been mainly confined to the particular enterprise itself; especially in the narrow form of web services and have been of limited success even there. Extranet take-up, where common data is shared between parties in the supply chain, has been leisurely and this is precisely where mash-ups are needed. Very few organisations treat meta-data with the same focus as data. This means, mash-ups have trouble vouching for data currency and lineage which detracts from user take-on. It is possible that the solution to data integration will be the Semantic Web and a greater openness of organisations to share data. If so, we will be waiting some years yet.
4) Industry standards. Have been slow to be adopted. A notable exception here is XBRL for common reporting.
5) SSO. This is not exactly an issue for consumer mash-ups; assuming you are using open linked data but it is still a huge inhibitor to data integration for many organisations.
6) Blogging comparison. Although superficially similar to blogging - mashing (if you are going to do it properly) requires a thorough data understanding and a lot more effort than committing stream-of-conscious thoughts before they float away into the ether (or linking to other peoples work). Blogging is simply an easier way to achieve microcelebrity and also - because the majority of posts are written in the first-person (I think...) they can be defended (if need be) by the simple statement - "These are my opinions". This is a segueway into a whole minefield of philosophy, politics and culture that is best left alone. People mainly do. Only a small proportion will directly challenge someone's written thoughts. Publishing a mashup however - where you are vouching for the legitimacy of the data opens you up to direct challenge (people may have provably better data) and so people resist it. Only when the number of single versions of truth in the world become smaller and more consolidated will this situation change.
Popfly showed early promise as a learning tool but never really got past being a Silverlight showcase. Its focus was on looking good (geo mash-ups and slick drag/drop) rather than data integration. It did not use RDF at all. MSFT have been slow to utilise semantic web approaches in general. Some of their media management technologies use RDF in the background but their main focus has been around semantic search through the Semantic Engine. This initiative uses recently acquired Powerset technologies and will be released through SQL Server. PowerPivot has been significantly downsized from its original Project Gemini remit which would have provided not just a potent reporting mash-up environment but the management and support processes and infrastructure to QA and promote the mash-ups throughout the enterprise. This latter point is a key inhibitor to mash-up growth in general.
There are still signs of life in the mash-up tool space. Dapper is advertising focused. NetVibes is portal focussed. Alchemy API takes a content management/annotation approach (similar to Intel Mash-up Maker). Birst takes an analytic portal approach. Jackbe looks interesting; it appears to take a sales analytics approach. Snaplogic is not exactly a mash-up tool but it certainly takes a non-technical approach to data integration. None of them really play in that sweet-spot between enterprise and consumer though.
The parallel economic downturn has influenced mash-up take-on. The enterprise essentially stopped unproven development and consumers have yet to be sold on the concept but let’s face it – the focus on one or two drop-downs for configuration and Google Maps didn’t help either. The future of mash-ups is secure because it is the future of building useful applications quickly by SMEs and that will always be desirable. Five back-end data sources (database, RSS etc.) linked to five middle-ware components (aggregation, integration etc.) and five front-end components (analytics, data entry etc.) generates 125 possible combinations of application straight off the bat. Adding tailoring through filtering, personalisation and general configuration takes in into the thousands. This simple logic guarantees a future at least in the enterprise.
Whether the name “mash-up” has been tainted by its recent hiatus and – like its raison d’etre will need to resurface as part of something new remains to be seen. We can be sure though that the next generation of mash-up activity needs to be three things in order to stick around; interactive, data focused and usable in both enterprise and consumer spaces.
09 May 2010
We're all journalists. Can't we be designers too?
Why do web sites still look so dull? Ten years ago when broadband adoption and the content management tools we take for granted today were evolving this was understandable. Now though, the opportunity for anyone, anywhere to knock together a free site with federated content, streaming media, real-time integration, lots of storage, payment options, embedded BI, bolt-on UX functions (gadgets/web-parts), graphically engaging templates and critically - keep it up-to-date all without writing any code (maybe CSS if you really get into it) does not afford the same excuses.
So why are - organisational sites and blogs are just as dull looking now as they were a decade ago? We have real-time integration and video but; from a graphical design perspective, they haven’t really moved on. Of course the focus always needs to be on content; form follows function after all but can we not just have a little graphical integrity on top?
Here are the main reasons why sites are dull:
1) Trend. There is still a Googly/Web 2.0 trend for basic, almost amateurish looking text with minimal graphics and an informal almost chummy way of addressing the consumer even for large organisations. This is partially a marketing approach to engendering trust in the consumer (you are dealing with a friendly colleague-kid/folksy dad/generally laid-back individual who does not just want to take your money - he has a cause). This trend extends to the name (something snappy/abstract; typically with an ‘r’ at the end) and certain marketing approaches. As with all trends, people will tire of them. Given that this one has been running for a good decade, we are due for a new one. There is an embryonic trend among career designers for overlaying text on web sites. Previously this was considered anathema due to usability reasons. It has been used for ages in print media but all you need to do there is read. When things become interactive, use of this technique needs to be handled with care. It can make sites more organic and stimulating though.
2) Tool. Existing free tools do not go far enough in supporting design. The Blogger Template Designer released earlier this year does a great job of allowing the user to customise fonts, backgrounds (and has a good quality variety of templates to start with). It is highly functional. It stops though (as with most tools in this space) at providing support for the creative process itself. In a sense it provides too much freedom and not enough creative support. It is not a stretch to imagine core graphic design principals – proximity (are you sure you want to put that there?), contrast (your pink on cyan scheme?), alignment and repetition being supported through a tool. Also, Google has a ready-to-go tool with “Find similar images” (potentially driven by Image Swirl that could help in building composite background images. The underutilized grid system could be implemented within a tool. At the very least, let’s have a way to get text anti-aliased.
3) Fear. Most people are not designers. Everyone is a critic on the Internet. People are worried that their design will be wrong, weird or somehow not good enough. These are the same worries people in the mid-nineties went through went they started blogging. Blogs have become complementary to the established newspaper industry. No-one (blogging in their first language at least) now feels threatened by comments criticising their use of semantics, grammar, structure etc. by journalists. Their enthusiasm more than makes up for any lack of storytelling narrative.
4) Advertising. It is straightforward for organisations and bloggers in particular to advertise through their sites. Over half of all bloggers do it. Typically, this entails embedding banners on a page in corporate colours/graphics/typeface (and so unable to be changed) which can break a design. There needs to be less restriction on what can be done to these banners (Photoshop etc.) so that they can be adapted to a particular design. This means more designers will eventually incorporate them. Bloggers should also consider whether the pennies they receive in advertising revenue is worth corrupting a design. If a blog starts getting serious hits (around 10K unique visitors/month) then by all means advertise but advertising is generally not compatible with graphical design right now.
This post has been about why sites are dull. They are by no means insurmountable reasons and a movement to amateur web design is to be welcomed. Why? – Because it will complement and ultimately improve the graphical design integrity of the Internet. Is this (non-tangible) result worth the effort? That is too large a question for the tail end of this post. This audience will be likely (fairly equally) split into those that maintain content is so much of the WWW-equation that it is barely even worth discussing presentation. Others will argue philosophically that life without art is impossible. Let us just leave with the knowledge that graphic design services are a $12BN/year industry in the US alone and attractive sites (like attractive people) will bring others back to them.
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