Lately I have been reading about Mozilla Prism and trying to play with it. The concept is very interesting and has dramatic implications in future. Prism tries to encapsulate a Web site into a standalone Desktop Web Application. On the face of it this may look pretty ordinary, but with interesting possibilities. Take following quote:
One of the biggest advantages of integrating a web app more tightly with the desktop is the possibility of providing new and potentially more ergonomic ways of interacting with the app. Dock and tray icon menus are an example of this.
from http://browsing.justdiscourse.com/2008/05/21/mozilla-prism-update/.
This comment sums up essentially what the Prism developers want to achieve. A rich desktop experience combined with ease of use of web applications.
In case you are wondering where you heard this before, Microsoft has been drumming up S+S for last few years. But the approach taken by Prism intends to make the OS irrelevant. A developer only needs to learn HTML, XUL and Jscript to build rich S+S application which leverages internet technologies.
Future is exciting.
I will continue to watch for developments in this space with interest.
