The Web as an Application Platform: The Saga Continues

Abstract

The World Wide Web is the most powerful medium for information sharing and distribution in the history of humankind. In this paper we take a look at the evolution of the Web from a relatively simple document sharing system to a massively popular, general purpose application and content distribution environment. We focus especially on the rapidly increasing use of the Web as a software platform. So far, a number of obstacles have hindered the development and deployment of full-fledged, truly interactive web applications. However, emerging standards such as HTML5 and Web GLare removing the limitations, and transforming the Web into a real application platform. We believe that in the future the use of conventional binary programs will be limited to system software, whereas the vast majority of end user software will be developed using web technologies.