Can we have a "no download" world?

Currently we all are witnessing an entirely new era in computers. This era is marked by surge in applications built solely into the browser. With each passing day startups and web giants are trying their best to centrally manage their applications and give end users a browser interface for use. Owing to vast variety of applications from word processing to gaming available inside the browser users are getting gripped by "no download" syndrome. We all want everything inside our user friendly browser. Downloading an application and updating it gives us headache.

There is nothing wrong with falling in love with browser applications. But hating download-able app just because many useful apps are available online does not seem to be a prudent way to go. You will be missing a whole world of useful and entertaining software if you avoid clicking download button. The capabilities of browser based applications are severely limited. Lets look at the options available for developer while developing an application for browser and for desktop. For desktop there is an endless list of programming languages C, C++, Java, C# and these languages are backed by numerous API's which make work of developer easier. These languages and their APIs have evolved over the years and billions of programming hours have been devoted to make them efficient.

Now consider the options which a developer has when developing a browser based application. An application built into browser is split into two parts during development. One is front end code which runs into the browser and other is back end code which runs on server. On front end only two options are reliable : Flash and Javascript. I have purposely left out Java Applet and Java Web Start because they are still not very browser friendly and are buggy. Fortunately there are many options for server side programming which include PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby and many more.

From here on I take the case of Tankaar which is a thick client application with a desktop client and interacts with web through HTTP and XMPP. When we decided to develop Tankaar we required a platform on which we can built a high speed game, with its FPS (Frames per Second) reaching 50. We needed to move, collide and explode things and still able to render at 50 FPS. This is too much for Flash, unthinkable in Javascript (till HTML5 and WebGL arrive) and impossible in server scripts for obvious reasons. Moreover, code needed to be written in such a way that it is easy to manage and extensible so that we can add more weapons/astras from time to time. After lot of thinking we decided to use Java with OpenGL (for Graphics rendering). Though it meant that application will be download-able and will require JRE/Java pre-installed on the system, but it was a necessity of the game. Otherwise, an artillery game in Flash would have looked like Ferrari kept on bullock cart.

Though I took example of Tankaar, but whatever I said is true not only for games but also for many other varieties of softwares. Browser is evolving and has evolved enough to make information accessible in user friendly and interactive manner. It needs to evolve more to deliver high performance applications to end user. I am desperately waiting for HTML5 and WebGL. I am optimistic that time will come when browser will be the easiest way to go for creating a cross platform application for users. But presently, I would say "no download" world is still a dream. So my friends do hit download button whenever you find something interesting. After all with slashing rates of hardware RAM, processor and hard disk I know your system configuration is much better than your internet connection. So why limit your experience by relying only on browser and internet connection.