The Future of the Internet Is Your Desktop.

In a recent post I wrote on MentallyRetired, I discuss Adobe's recent decision to move all of their applications to the Web. I gave my opinion as to why this is a bad idea. In summary, the web can't handle it. Code that is interpreted in multiple ways by multiple browsers will never be good enough because it's too expensive to support. That's the cliff notes version of my post.

In addition, I left the door open to a solution, as I always have in this discussion. Whatever the future of the web is, it will have to come in the form of a desktop install.

As if on queue, Mozilla released the windows version of Prism this week. Prism is intended to be a simple desktop viewer for your favorite web applications, but I believe it has the ability to become much, much more. Although browser based, Prism solves the issues I mentioned with web browsers. It does interpret code, but if your application was made to run in Firefox, then Prism will display it exactly as you intended.

Some might call me hypocritical because of how I bashed browsers in my previous post, but I hope they understand my point. Although Prism is pretty much a navigation-free browser, it is an application and it is based on one browser. If your application was made for Prism, it will run in Prism. All the power of the net funneled through a viewfinder that you intended it to be seen through. Additionally, because it's a desktop installation, it has the power to do so much more. Offline storage, file system access, the canvas tag, and even more impressive... it can run XUL applications. I'm not sure yet if it's possible to embed XUL inside of XHTML, but damn that would be powerful. Imagine a XUL based file upload form. (If you're a developer, you're salivating at this thought.)

Isn't Mozilla already working on a standalone XUL platform, though? Well, yes, but XULRunner stands on it's own because it already has things like DLL support, file system access and offline storage. Prism is more of a window through which to view web applications.

What I want to know is, will we start to see Prism-only applications? Will we be able to bundle their application as a download with Prism? All the things that Firefox supports are supported in Prism, so it makes sense that developers finally take advantage of the great standards support that Firefox provides.

Some will now criticize me and say "If people haven't made Firefox-only websites already, why would they start just for Prism?" My answer to them would be to look at the delivery. Look at it from your grandma's point of view. If she downloads this program and installs it, it works on her machine, plain and simple. If she were forced to download Firefox and start it up just to pull up a website, she probably wouldn't. This is a very intelligent way for the team at Mozilla to get people to use Firefox, and a very intelligent way for developers to forget about cross browser headaches and get on with their development. This is very smart on Mozilla's part.

Those same devil's advocates and Web purists are now steaming mad. "The web is supposed to be an open platform! Interpretation is the name of the game! Any device can access from anywhere! People shouldn't be locked into a system!" is what they're saying to themselves. Trust me, I understand. I come from a 15 year background of CSS, XHTML, and JavaScript. However, I have a big big problem with all of it. Browser interpretation cannot be relied upon. It's as simple as that. If we want the advantages of web standards, we have to use Web standard supporting platforms. It's naive to think any less. As much of a fan as I am of Web standards, I'm a bigger fan of fast development and technologies working.

"But the developers should be doing a better job!" you say. I agree... but the reality of it is that they are not. One application to read code that was intended for that application is going to be a lot smoother of a process, from front to back.

Overall, I think this is a great move by Mozilla. The only way I can see this backfiring is if Microsoft releases their own application in the same class as Prism, based on Internet Explorer. At that point we'd have to support multiple interpretations again... but that's kind of the beauty of this. We can choose not to support the MS version, and people won't expect it to work. By jumping straight to your application through Prism, it takes the browser-based ideology away from the user and makes them feel as if they're using a real, solid application... and they will be.

Hats off to Mozilla for coming up with a possible solution to this ever-lingering issue.

James Thomas is a web developer and recent transplant to Orange County, California. By day, he develops websites for Oakley. By night, he programs websites and plots to take over the world, which is the same thing he does every night, Pinky.