Why Ruby on Rails

Last week I was fortunate enough to attend Microsoft Tech Ed 2008 New Zealand. There was a huge amount of varied content but I am focusing on two sessions I attended (expect another post on Dynamic Languages).

One of my most anticipated sessions was a panel discussion on Web futures – the next 18 months. I was expecting to hear contradictory views on where things were heading.  Maybe I should not have been surprised that there seemed to be rather a lot of consensus. It is a “give in” that there may have been a Microsoft focus but nevertheless I was expecting more sparks to fly.

Why I was so interested was to focus my learning around the technologies that are likely to become dominant.  May be more importantly to learn which new and existing businesses will thrive as the Web develops.

The more I thought about what I had heard I was reminded of a quote that goes something like

Those who know about the future are too busy creating it to talk about it

Even 18 months is a long time.  Looking at the history of YouTube it was only 18 months from launch to being purchased by Google.

As another aside Blake Ross , one of the main creators of Firefox is still only 23 years old.  So the view of any one over 30 on the future of the Web may not be that relevant (that includes me by the way).

So here is my view of what are some of the most significant technologies going forward :-

Ruby on Rails

Enough said, won’t labour it further here.  The addition of Internationalisation is another sign of it’s maturity and completeness.

Eliminating Multiple User-names

For the end user, me included this simply becomes too hard to manage.  Every retailer on the Web seems to have a different user-name and password they want you to remember.  Google Account, Microsoft Live ID were mentioned.  However let’s not forget OpenID and I am determined to learn more about how I can use it on any sites I develop.

Microsoft SilverLight

Whatever degree of success or adoption Silverlight achieves it will be significant in shaping the future of the Web.  Off course SilverLight is not a replacement for Flash however it is inevitable that comparisons will be drawn.  As Flash enters it’s 12th year and now has the strong back of Adobe it will be interesting to see what happens.

Elastic Computing Platforms (ECP)

I prefer the terms ECP to Cloud Computing as that sounds a bit fluffy.  It is very much a reality with Amazon EC2 Service . I began to appreciate the significance of Cloud Computing when I read on Akita on Rails Blog Post on the topic.  Google App Engine and off course Herkou for Rails use this technology.  I also expect given time there will be more database engines that solely exist for on-line storage similar to Google’s BigTable .

High Speed Internet

The keynote address at Tech Ed features leaders from both of New Zealand’s main political parties giving their visions for the future around providing Internet to homes and businesses.  This will and always has driven what applications are going to be used in practice.  Just one example, my monthly cap on Internet usage is 3Gb so why would I use a service such as Mozy for on-line backups.  Mozy itself may be free for up to 2Gbbut with such restrictive limits there are some countries like New Zealand where these sorts of service just are not going to be used (much).