Standards + love = Web 2.0

Web 2.0 – The buzzword of the last 2 years, now slow but steadily reaches cooperate ears, and even here in technology-ghetto Greece you can here suit wearing junior managers throw around terms like community, usability, ajax etc….

But was is Web 2.0 really? Is it Digg, reddit and newsvine? Is it myspace, youtube, or the google apps?

None of them I believe.
Web 2.0 is about standards, and lowering the barrier.

If we look back in those 2 years that have passed we didn’t actually bring something new to the receipt. We have had browsers (and yes IE did support the XMLHTTP request even back then), we sure had JS, we had online users, but what was missing was the glue that would unite them all and produce the boom of the web as we are living it right now.

Scene No.1 – The standards enter the stage

Standards, standards and standards again. In a information jungle like the web if we don’t define some basic rules about how to exchange data, “myspaces occur”.
First there were the feeds. The feed standards took some time to establish itself, but in the end it provided a consistent markup used throughout the web.

Then there were the functional standards. Remote invocation interfaces and other such goodies.
We had Corba, JSON but in the end REST just beat them. At least it did for the Web 2.0.

Last but not least we had CSS. Data and representation separated in a very clear, simple, and designer friendly way.

Scene No.2 – Rails enters the stage

So we now had some working standards but what we were missing was the momentum. The KAWABOOM.

We needed a reason to switch from using a designer in Visual Studio to switching back to writing markup by hand, debuggin js for every browser, and messing with the code php lets us create.

For every single of the above Web 2.0 offered me a cure.

• Markup by hand: Enter css, the perfect separation. Data Vs Representation
• Debugging JS: JS libraries which have done the hard part of me and provide some convenient things already done.
• Messed up code: Enter Rails and MVC, integrated with on the best JS libraries and a zillion other goodies.

Scene No. ? Where are we heading

Yahoo pipes. Microsoft Silverlight, Adobe’s Flex so much new innovative technologies.

IE 8, Firefox 3, Safari 3 will provide a stronger ground for the applications to come.

The most important part: A plethora of developers and fresh minds!