Check out the following video on Zdnet: http://zdnet.com.com/1606-2_2-6048186.html
The thin client concept is one of those technologies that keeps resurging every so often like waves on the technology landscape. It finds niches where it’s well suited but then subsides in terms of media or industry attention. Regardless, the argument that the “perfect storm” currently exists for the widespread adoption in the business arena fits well with my current experience.
The bandwidth taken up due to the asynchronous transfer of graphical bitmap change information is pretty minimal for most business applications given the bandwidth available. Couple this with the processor power available today and in the near future with multi-core processors and you have a strong argument for the widespread adoption of thin clients for businesses. It’s just so much easier for IT support departments if they have strong control over the environment in which the software they support runs.
This brings to mind Microsoft’s plans for the RDP protocol with respect to the WPF graphics functionality. Since WPF/Avalon is fundamentally vector based, the likelihood is that the RDP style protocol for WPF will involve the asynchronous transfer of graphic object property changes. Yet another example of what’s old is new again (e.g. X Windows)!
Following on with this windy thought road, if a WPF based variation of RDP is practical then why can’t we have a distributed object implementation based on the same basic protocol concepts? There currently appears to be a sentiment to move away from “objects” given the work done in the SOA arena and issues people have with an O/R mapper approach.
So what’s the point of this post? I suppose it can be summarized as:
- The thin client area is worth watching over the next couple of years for business IT.
- I’m really interested in how RDP will operate with respect to WPF functionality? Will it be bitmap change oriented or vector change oriented?
- I’m not ready to give up my object addiction for software development analysis, design and implementation.
- I don’t think the software industry has fully realized the potential of OO. In particular, the database, platform and middleware companies have not really stepped up to the plate. Its difficult and complex work, but man the money flow they have is there to justify it.
Now, if my blog was widely read (it’s certainly not) I’m sure there would be comments questioning why live in the past? Maybe I should hop on to the SOA bandwagon or get real and also let the RDBMS drive the internal software design? There was a video from the 2005 PDC conference with Don Box telling someone off camera to basically get over OO and move on. It’s likely to be tiring having OO zealots questioning an SOA approach but a whole-of-industry direction that means giving up some of the benefits of OO development is worth questioning. I suppose just waiting a few years and relying on the “everything that is old is new again” principal will bring back the core OO benefits as some newly named paradigm.