news analysis The days when Web pages were static collections of text and graphics are long past. But as the Web matures, there is a fierce competition over which technology will propel it into a medium for rich, interactive applications.
On one side of the battle lines is the original Web page description technology called HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language. Over the years, its abilities were augmented first with JavaScript, a basic programming language, and later a JavaScript-on-steroids technology called Ajax.
On the other side is Adobe Systems' Flash, which got its start as a method for graphic animations. It has grown into a much more powerful programming foundation over the years and has been joined more recently by a competitor: Microsoft's Silverlight.
All these technologies are advancing rapidly as Internet start-ups and giants such as Google race to transform personal computer software into services available on the Internet. These so-called rich Internet applications rarely match the performance and features of PC-based applications, at least today, but online applications can benefit from sharing, reliability, and access from multiple devices.
Consumers typically need not worry much about the programming plumbing beneath their online applications. But suppose you are the person on the hook for your company's online expense reporting tool or a start-up planning to build an online music mixer for anyone on the Internet. You will have to place a bet on which technology is best and which programmers to hire or train.
Few expect the competition to have a winner any time soon.
"You'll continue to see a high degree of flux for probably the next several years," said Kevin Hoyt, an Adobe Systems technology evangelist for rich Internet applications.
People in the computer industry love to talk about competition, which indeed often does keep companies from growing complacent. But it is also awfully convenient when some foundational technology--Windows, JPEG, and USB spring to mind--dominates to the point where most engineers need not worry much about the messy chaos of multiple choices.
The HTML camp
The HTML side of the battle has its roots in industry standards and in the task of displaying information. That is good and bad.
Industry standards can attract broad adoption, but they are typically slow to arrive. And though both JavaScript and HTML are standards, differences in how they are implemented in different browsers--and even different versions of the same browser--force programmers to accommodate all the possibilities.
Unlike during the browser wars of the 1990s, though, there is more convergence than divergence these days. Even the upcoming version 8 of the dominant browser, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, will ship in a standards-compliant mode by default.
And HTML cannot be beat for pervasiveness, which is one reason why Kevin Henrikson, director of engineering at Zimbra, is a fan. Zimbra, which provides online e-mail and other applications, was an early Ajax adopter and in 2007 was acquired by Internet giant Yahoo.
"Even if I were starting from scratch today, I still think I'd bet on JavaScript and Ajax...It's going to be hard to stop the massive momentum we have," Henrikson said. "Flash is seeing a pretty aggressive growth cycle now, [but] I still think JavaScript is going to be [used in] 10 times the number of Flash apps that launch."
Microsoft sees things differently, believing that programmers are best off ditching HTML and JavaScript as soon as Web applications start getting rich.
"It's amazing what people have done with HTML, which was never intended to do rich Internet applications. And Flash was originally created for lightweight animation--literally for Mickey Mouse on the Web," said Brad Becker, who as group product manager for rich client platforms at Microsoft helps oversee Silverlight. "But these technologies were designed for something else, and people are really hacking them to do more."
Overhauling HTML and JavaScript
Today's HTML kludges might be tomorrow's standard features, though, because big changes are on the way.
One idea that is established but not yet fully settled down is more sophisticated data storage that can let applications keep local copies of data or documents for a long time. One very important use of this technology is letting people use their Web applications even when offline.
Other big change HTML changes include Canvas to let browsers create customized graphical elements such as charts on the fly based on programming instructions rather than just downloading pre-fabricated elements from a Web site; Web Workers to let browsers perform computationally intense background tasks without disturbing the browser interface; and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), an existing standard, which if adopted more widely could encroach on some Flash abilities.
Farther out on the horizon are audio and video tags for HTML that would let browsers play media with no extra plug-ins needed. If the industry manages to wade through the technological and intellectual-property difficulties of that area, it could erode one of today's main Flash and Silverlight advantages.
"If you put it all together, that lends itself to Ajax being a very powerful, capable rich Internet application technology," said Adobe's Hoyt.
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Flash, HTML, Ajax: Which will prevail?
Your author has shown his inability to get across the current "tug of war" (if there indeed is one amongst the lead developers) of technology on the web at this stage.
"Flash, HTML, Ajax: Which will prevail?" is so nonsensical to those who understand the technologies that it makes one wonder where the editor was prior to publishing. First, while full flash sites still exist on the web, a far better use of the technology is to enhance any site with the ability to play audio and video. Scott Schiller's SoundManager2 API successfully allows for the control of audio and video via elements in the DOM. As proposed, the audio and video elements for x/html would not provide the level of control that is currently possibly with Flash. As for "HTML v AJAX", AJAX is simply the call made to a server asynchronously (ie no need for a page refresh) to push or pull content. AJAX by itself cannot operate as it needs some form of user interaction to allow a call to be made - this may be from traditional HTML or embedded movies (aka Flash) within the page.
As for Silverlight, with flash's near ubiquity as a plug in for enhanced media Microsoft has left their run far too late, not to mention that being behind the legacy that refuses to die (IE6, launched prior to September 11, 2001), developers are barely ambling over to take a look let alone jump in and make it their platform of choice.
PS: please have someone overhaul this form. An input, type submit, is the correct means for submitting a form - not an anchor with javascript embedded in the href attribute.
Posted by Joel on Thursday, May 14 2009 12:22 PM