Well, maybe you do, but there seems to be a heck of a lot of people out there who don’t. Feast your eyes on this article in the Sydney Morning Herald for example.
Developers are comparing this technology to ‘offline web pages’ provided by Internet Explorer but I’m afraid that just like Google Maps, its going to take a little time before people catch on.
So what is it?
Well, think about Gears as a proxy which sits between an AJAX web application and the web server which is providing the application. This proxy can serve up the application with its online functionality and transactional data through an intermediary web server to provide the XMLHttpRequest functionality from a local webserver. The intermediary technology is accessible to the web application througha browser plug-in which provides a rich persistance and sync library for the web application to use so it can intelligently work with Gears.
You can already see that this is not a technology for the feint hearted.
So whats the deal with Gears? Well, its more than just about going offline – its about reliability. Look at the background of Google – where have they invested millions and millions of dollars? Answer: In web applications. There are many issues with deploying web applications and if they are the bread and butter of a business as big as Google, it makes sense for them to create a platform which makes browser based applications act as first class citizens on desktop computers.
So what are the issues hindering web applications from becoming first class citizens on the desktop?
First of all, of course – offline capabilities. This is the selling point for Gears, but its deeper than just ‘road warriors’ needing this to sync when they get an internet connection. Its about application reliability. Internet connections by their nature are unreliable. There are too many points of weakness in the fabric of application delivery to guarantee performance to a desktop or a laptop. Providing a local proxy for the application the way Gears does may add a layer of complexity in development, but it also REMOVES a layer of complexity in crazy error handling for all the situations where the XMLHttpRequest can freak out and fail because the connection was just dropped or partially lost for no apparent reason. This reliability makes for a robust experience which business users demand.
Secondly its all about performance. Gears is not just a technology, platform or a plug-in. Its an entire shift in metaphor. It truly is moving to an Internet Operating System. Any complex application can be installed in to the Gears proxy server which allows the web application being installed to be non-trivial, with no installation process. The performance of the application becomes that of a local application.
When the performance of the application becomes comparable to traditional ‘desktop’ applicatons and the weak point of reliability of the persistance layer is also diminished it makes for any web application to be a first class citizen on the PC desktop. At the same time it is making the native computer’s operating system irrelevant by using the ubiquitous browser as the delivery platform.
If Gears catches on, it will fundamentally change the way we use the web for delivering application functionality and shape the next generation of browser platform.
Filed under: Industry Opinion
Great article, so many blogs covered Google Gears, but didnt explain the whys and where fors…