So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish!

Apologies for the title of this blog entry - I couldn't resist the Douglas Adams reference! In a way, though, we HAVE been hitchhiking around a galaxy of sorts.

The first 15-20 years of the internet experience have allowed us to interact in new and exciting ways. At first, scientists and academicians were able to post papers and projects. That wasn't terribly remarkable; what was remarkable was the ability to embed links to references and related material, resulting in the concept and nomenclature of a web. Techies soon followed, and as word began to spread, more and more people got in on the experience, eventually leading to advertising and commerce establishing a presence on the web portion of the internet. Even with all this activity, the chief emphasis has been on the power of linking via HTML. Returning to our space metaphor, these capabilities were not unlike sending a probe off to a distant planet to deliver communications to and collect responses from a distant civilization.

Of late, we have a new capability that takes the power of HTML to a whole other dynamic level. This capability is known as AJAX and is one of the key enablers of the Web 2.0 technology and experience. Now, rather than send unmanned probes to distant worlds we are able to communicate in real-time. The various tools that enable us to do so have been our vessels these past several weeks.

To borrow another cliche, what a long strange strip it's been! Although the course is coming to an end, happily the voyage continues!