2018 is to 2008 as 2008 is to 1998

Posted by Noah | Filed under general, technology

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I’ll be doing in another 10 years. I’ve been at this web thing for a over 10 years now… I don’t know exactly when it was I wrote my first snippet of HTML, it was some probably time back in 1996 or 1997… I’m sure it was horrible.

I first started turning angle brackets into dollar signs on a full time basis in the summer of 2002, a little over 6 years ago (I did contract work, internships, and worked part time before then).

Allow me to tell you a little bit about the ol’ interweb job back then.

The company I worked with was on the cutting edge… of backwards compatibility, that meant that in 2002 we were developing for 4.x browsers circa 1997, Today that would be like developing for IE 6 and Mozilla 1 (as a focus!) so it wasn’t really a big deal it just wasn’t exciting. Tables and spacer GIFs were the name of the game (GIFs were still patented back then you know!) We used Flash too, we tried to publish for Flash 3 or 4, and of course we offered non-flash, non-javascript, non-cookie versions of pretty much everything thing because a surprising number of users back then thought they were bad. Some clients (especially in the the government) were in offices where they used dial-up to connect to the Interwebs from their Windows 98 computers with 640×480 256 color screens, used IE 4 with no plug-ins, no scripts, no cookies… o and they still wanted nice websites. Boy howdy did we deliver! It’s amazing what you can do when you have to.

If you’re wondering just how much things have changed in the way of rich content access I just checked the stats for a couple of popular wide audiences websites I have access to and browsers with no-flash access make up only 1.5% of the the hits, including those from mobile devices. Just for comparison about 3.3% of people in North America are visually impaired, 0.4% are legally blind, 1% are functionally illiterate. How often do you develop with non-flash users in mind? How about the blind or even illiterate ones?

So where is the future?

I see the bulk of the skilled development work shifting from a) making pretty designs, b) marking up content the client wrote, and c) hammering out oodles of non-interactive sites to developing really interactive rich applications.

This might actually mean fewer web designers, and developers over all; but let’s face it, at one time a lot of people made a lot of money by “thinking in fortran” and punching cards, those people didn’t die when the technology changed. We just need to be ready for the changes. A lot of the really dull repetitive, wheel re-inventing jobs will be eliminated, and the people who aren’t capable of moving on will certainly be forced to find new jobs, some of the jobs may move to emerging markets, but don’t expect “basic” web jobs to be sticking around here all that much longer. At-least not very many of them.

CMSs are getting pretty good, rich editors are almost decent and if IE gets it’s act together the lumps with that will smooth out pretty quickly. I’ve even seen a fairly convincing demo of a product that cuts up PSDs into XHTML and CSS automatically.

By 2019 I see development of the typical small business website going a bit like this (and I’m being very conservative here). A designer makes a layout (probably based on something from a library of wireframe designs), perhaps even in a tool which transparently works directly with XML, CSS and SVG (Or whatever code we’re using by then!) bypassing Photoshop (or whatever the big tool is by then) all together (in most cases). That design is point and click marked up for use with a template system and is then plugged into a CMS. The client will fill out the content, which I’m sure will still be difficult to cause to happen, even in 2019.

It’s already pretty close to being the case, all we’re really losing is the skilled work of turning designs into code and plugging them into a CMS, and don’t expect to be doing a lot of work writing CMS software either. How many people are writing new word processors these days? At one time that was the product of the future, Now you have three, Office, OpenOffice and Pages, and you can almost ignore the last two, actually most businesses do. I’m expecting an end to end Adobe solution that actually works, right now they don’t have that, but Adobe isn’t stupid, they’re just slow.

That means Joey McCodemonkey isn’t going to be able to eek out a living turning PSDs into HTML anymore; so what will he do? Well that means Joey is going to have to do what all those programmers who were writing desktop publishing software back in the ’90s had to do when that dried up. He’ll have to get a job doing something else, and for a lot that’s going to be outside of programming. Technology careers have a tendency to chew people up and spit them out. How many programmers do you know? How many who have been doing it for more than 5,10,15,20 years? Those numbers shrink pretty fast don’t they. It’s not like people were not programmers in 1989, sure there might have been fewer but they did exist, and probably in greater number than you’d think.

So what will the Joeys who can adapt be doing?

Well they’re going to be writing apps, web apps but we’re not really going to consider them that because it’s all going to be “web” apps, and you can drop the web because that’s not going to be important. You can call them, internet hosted applications or something if you like. The line between desktop and web apps is already under attack, heck Microsoft tried it with the whole HTA fiasco back in the day. More recently Microsoft, Apple and Google have all been playing around with web based office suites.

So what does it come down to?

Rich, unskilled-human friendly interfaces to important and interesting data, just like desktop apps today, just like desktop apps in 1999. Our idea of what good usable software means changes all the time. In 1989 color terminal based software was the bee’s knees in usable computer software. In 1999 it was rich GUI desktop applications. In 2009 it’s rich web apps. In 2019 it’s going to be rich interfaces delivered over the Internet. What will rich mean? Well I suspect it’s going to be ever more interactive and ever more social. Indeed John Gage was a genius when he came up with the one time Sun Microsystem’s slogan of “The Network Is The Computer”. It’s been lauded as an idea before it’s time, and it only gets more true with time.

Tags: , , , , ,

Read more | Comments (2) | November 16th, 2009

I Need to Stop Writing Half Posts at 2am

Posted by Noah | Filed under technology

I was just cleaning my drafts folder and goodness I really need to stop writing posts at 2am, so many half finished, junky posts.

Tags: , , , ,

Read more | Comments (1) | November 16th, 2009

Canon vs. Nikon’s Lens Lineups

Posted by Noah | Filed under technology

While trying to decide what camera to buy after selling Sony A200 (for various reasons, don’t worry it’s not a bad camera!), I narrowed it down to the Canon 50D or the Nikon D90. When asking for advice it often came up that Canon had a larger selection of lenses. However nobody ever quantified it. So I’m going to. Canon has 91 lens like devices to Nikons 66; at-least as far as I can tell from their USA websites at this time. I say “lens like” because I included converters. That’s 38% more. There is a possible problem here, it seems some lenses have multiple versions which get counted as multiple lenses sometimes and not others, if you’d care to sort that out for me, let me know how I should do it. But for now, here are lists.

Canon Lens Lineup

  1. EF 100-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM
  2. EF 100-300mm f/5.6 L
  3. EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
  4. EF 100mm f/2 USM
  5. EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro / Macro USM
  6. EF 1200mm f/5.6L USM
  7. EF 135mm f/2.8 w/ Softfocus
  8. EF 135mm f/2L USM
  9. EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM
  10. EF 14mm f/2.8L USM
  11. EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye
  12. EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM
  13. EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM
  14. EF 17-35mm f/2.8L USM
  15. EF 17-40mm f/4L USM
  16. EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM
  17. EF 20-35mm f/2.8 USM
  18. EF 20-35mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
  19. EF 200mm f/1.8L USM
  20. EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM / USM
  21. EF 200mm f/2L IS USM
  22. EF 20mm f/2.8 USM
  23. EF 22-55mm f/4-5.6 USM
  24. EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM
  25. EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM
  26. EF 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
  27. EF 24mm f/1.4L USM
  28. EF 24mm f/2.8
  29. EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM / USM
  30. EF 28-105mm f/4-5.6 USM
  31. EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
  32. EF 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 USM
  33. EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L IS USM
  34. EF 28-70mm f/2.8 L USM
  35. EF 28-70mm f/3.5-4.5
  36. EF 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6
  37. EF 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 III/ II
  38. EF 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 IV USM/ V USM
  39. EF 28-90mm f/4-5.6 III / II USM
  40. EF 28-90mm f/4-5.6 USM
  41. EF 28mm f/1.8 USM
  42. EF 28mm f/2.8
  43. EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM / USM
  44. EF 300mm f/4L IS USM / USM
  45. EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM
  46. EF 35-350mm f/3.5-5.6L USM
  47. EF 35-80mm f/4-5.6 III/ II / USM
  48. EF 35mm f/1.4L USM
  49. EF 35mm f/2
  50. EF 400mm f/2.8L IS USM/II USM†/USM
  51. EF 400mm f/4 DO IS USM
  52. EF 400mm f/5.6L USM
  53. EF 500mm f/4.5L USM
  54. EF 500mm f/4L IS USM
  55. EF 50mm f/1.0L USM
  56. EF 50mm f/1.2L USM
  57. EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
  58. EF 50mm f/1.8
  59. EF 50mm f/1.8 II
  60. EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro
  61. EF 55-200mm f/4.5-5.6 II USM/ USM
  62. EF 600mm f/4L IS USM / USM
  63. EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM/ USM
  64. EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM
  65. EF 70-200mm f/4L USM
  66. EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM
  67. EF 70-300mm f/4–5.6 IS USM
  68. EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM/III/II USM
  69. EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 USM
  70. EF 75-300mm f/4–5.6 IS USM
  71. EF 80-200mm f/2.8L
  72. EF 80-200mm f/4.5-5.6 II/ USM
  73. EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM
  74. EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM / USM
  75. EF 85mm f/1.8 USM
  76. EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
  77. EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM
  78. EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
  79. EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
  80. EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
  81. EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 USM
  82. EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS
  83. EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM
  84. Extender EF 1.4x II
  85. Extender EF 2x II
  86. Extenders
  87. LifeSizeConverterEF***Tilt-Shift
  88. MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro Photo
  89. TS-E 24mm f/3.5L
  90. TS-E 45mm f/2.8
  91. TS-E 90mm f/2.8

Nikon Lens Lineup

  1. AF DC-NIKKOR 105mm f/2D
  2. AF DC-NIKKOR 135mm f/2D
  3. AF DX Fisheye-NIKKOR 10.5mm f/2.8G ED
  4. AF Fisheye-NIKKOR 16mm f/2.8D
  5. AF Micro-NIKKOR 200mm f/4D IF-ED
  6. AF Micro-NIKKOR 60mm f/2.8D
  7. AF NIKKOR 14mm f/2.8D ED
  8. AF NIKKOR 180mm f/2.8D IF-ED
  9. AF NIKKOR 20mm f/2.8D
  10. AF NIKKOR 24mm f/2.8D
  11. AF NIKKOR 28mm f/2.8D
  12. AF NIKKOR 35mm f/2D
  13. AF NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4D
  14. AF NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8D
  15. AF NIKKOR 85mm f/1.4D IF
  16. AF NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8D
  17. AF VR Zoom-NIKKOR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED
  18. AF Zoom-NIKKOR 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5D IF-ED
  19. AF Zoom-NIKKOR 24-85mm f/2.8-4D IF
  20. AF Zoom-NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4-5.6G
  21. AF Zoom-NIKKOR 80-200mm f/2.8D ED
  22. AF-S DX Micro NIKKOR 85mm f/3.5G ED VR
  23. AF-S DX NIKKOR 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED
  24. AF-S DX NIKKOR 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR
  25. AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR
  26. AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II
  27. AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR
  28. AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G
  29. AF-S DX VR Zoom-NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED
  30. AF-S DX VR Zoom-NIKKOR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G IF-ED
  31. AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 12-24mm f/4G IF-ED
  32. AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 17-55mm f/2.8G IF-ED
  33. AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II
  34. AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G IF-ED
  35. AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED
  36. AF-S Micro NIKKOR 60mm f/2.8G ED
  37. AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED
  38. AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED
  39. AF-S NIKKOR 300mm f/4D IF-ED
  40. AF-S NIKKOR 400mm f/2.8G ED VR
  41. AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/4G ED VR
  42. AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4G
  43. AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4G ED VR
  44. AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II
  45. AF-S Teleconverter TC-14E II
  46. AF-S Teleconverter TC-17E II
  47. AF-S Teleconverter TC-20E II
  48. AF-S VR Micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED
  49. AF-S VR NIKKOR 200mm f/2G IF-ED
  50. AF-S VR NIKKOR 300mm f/2.8G IF-ED
  51. AF-S VR Zoom-NIKKOR 200-400mm f/4G IF-ED
  52. AF-S VR Zoom-NIKKOR 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED
  53. AF-S VR Zoom-NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED
  54. AF-S VR Zoom-NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED
  55. AF-S Zoom-NIKKOR 17-35mm f/2.8D IF-ED
  56. Micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8
  57. Micro-NIKKOR 55mm f/2.8
  58. NIKKOR 20mm f/2.8
  59. NIKKOR 24mm f/2.8
  60. NIKKOR 28mm f/2.8
  61. NIKKOR 35mm f/1.4
  62. NIKKOR 50mm f/1.2
  63. NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4
  64. PC-E Micro NIKKOR 45mm f/2.8D ED
  65. PC-E Micro NIKKOR 85mm f/2.8D
  66. PC-E NIKKOR 24mm f/3.5D ED

And yet I still picked the Nikon.

Tags: , , , ,

Read more | Comments (2) | October 18th, 2009

« Older Entries