Gary Han - A Nerd Who Tries To Be Cool And Failed Thus Far

    We all know the trend that slowly creeps toward online application and development rather than dedicated OS(Operating System) based software. Google even started a new web based OS !! But why is this the case?
 
    Well, let’s try and analyze the pros and cons of each (I will try to be as unbiased as possible):
 
 For our traditional platform software:
    -Depends on the language you write the software in, it might be platform dependant; meaning that you won’t be able to run on any machine. That is not very nice isn’t it? If you have a Mac, you might not be able to run the same software on a Windows box.

    -Drains your system resource. So now you have this new game, will you be able to play it without upgrading your current computer? Hmm…I guess not if you want something processor heavy. So you would have to upgrade your computer often to keep up with the latest software!

    -Accessibility. Ok, so you have this cool looking application installed on your computer, but you won’t be able to share it with your friends unless they come to your room on your desktop or if you have your laptop with you or remote to your desktop to see it. I guess another negative aspect of platform software.

    -Privacy. Enough with the bad things about platform software! Here is something for sure good about it: All the data related to the program is stored locally and only locally in your own computer. So no one else will have access to this information other than you.

Ok, let’s have a look at a web based program:

    -Is platform independent, because all we need is a browser to access our application.

    -It does not drain out our system resource. So we can run more application at a higher speed. AND we can play new games without upgrading our computers! An upgrade to the graphic card might be necessary, but that is much better than having to upgrade the whole computer.

    -Is Accessible anywhere as long as you can get online. WOW! Imagine playing your favorite online game at work without installing the game and no one would know! Well, unless they have a packet sniffer sniffing on your pc, recording and tracking it.

    -Privacy Issue, with web apps, all your activities are tracked by the application. So what you do, where you do it, when you do it all are tracked by the application that you use. Is kinda invading into your private life, imagine even your OS is being hosted online. All your files are accessible online, which means whoever is hosting you OS file system will have access to all your secrets!!

    It looks to me that web app is more convenient as long as you don’t mind knowing that all your information are online. 

    Sounds like web applications are the way of the future as Google sees it.
    But are there limitations?
    I can only think of graphical performances for now.  Due to connection speed, unlike other processing applications, where it can receive all information needed for a computation at once, then send all information required back to the user in one call. Imagine sending request for every rendered screen. Any laag in the connection will affect the user experience.

    But still there are ways around it. We can start another discussion about that in another post...