Solitaire: The End of Desktop Applications
The web-based version of Solitaire at WorldOfSolitaire.com is as smooth and playable as the version included in Windows or Gnome by default. This is the end of desktop software - Solitaire was the final frontier.
Note that it is not built with Flash, but Javascript, CSS, HTML, via YUI.
All web apps are slow now. Of course they will be always slower but now they are noticeably slower than offline apps. Desktop apps cannot be competed with for most serious work.
However once the technology improves this will change. Web apps will become faster and work just like regular executables - almost. But you still need the internet to use them.
There is technology in the works (next firefox) to make web apps available offline for certain ones. I don't know how that will work but with faster apps and a better browser, web applications will approach real applications, and perhaps be competitive with them.
Then I ask - what's the difference between this web app of the future and OpenOffice, for instance? Not much except that there is an extra layer of programming (the browser) to make the app more resource intensive and slow.
So why are web apps being developed? It's easy and it's cross platform. Was this not the goal of Java? However because web apps have internet capabilities, this is why they excel in some areas.
The right tool for the right job though! Web apps will never replace offline apps in every instance.
