App VS. Page
Software Development on the Web is undergoing a revolution. We've had the ability to build responsive, useable, dynamic applications for quite a while now. But no one has capitalized on it. No one has been building those applications. Most web developers are still stuck in the WebPage mode of design and not the WebApp mode of design. Thankfully, companies like Google are starting to give the WebApp design philosophy some high profile attention with apps like Gmail and Google Maps. So what exactly is the difference? There are a number of radical differences between WebApp and WebPage Design modes. Each has a use in website designing. Webpage Design is about presenting information. It focuses on making the content readable, understandable, and locatable. Reference sites, and online literature sites do well with this design philosophy. Blogs are another instance where the WebPage Design philosophy works well. \ WebApp Design, on the other hand, focuses on responsive, dynamic, realtime action. Sites that allow the user to do something benefit the most from this approach. The Administration front ends to Reference sites, a WebMail site, and Online Game sites are all excellent candidates for the web app approach to design. Elements of these approaches to design are now getting combined in interesting ways. Google's autocomplete feature is one example. A melding of the two can only be beneficial to Web Development trends. In future articles I will be talking about some of the technologies that make these trends possible.