Well, as I mentioned yesterday, I have been computer-bound for the last 48 hours trying to get this secret project up and running.
When I was in college I was introduced to the concept of “Development Lifecycle Models”, a set (well, a few sets) of guidelines for producing good software or systems. You know: analysis, research, design, build, testing, rebuilt, retesting, maintenance, etc. Well, this was pretty much drilled into me for the last four years, yet when it came down to this project that all went out of the window.
What actually happened is this: my mother had this idea, I thought it was good and agreed (or did I?) to develop the website, I contributed some ideas, she made some suggestions, I told her that most of her concepts wouldn’t work (i.e. I don’t know how to do them), I had loads of work to do so I put it on hold, she and everyone involved got in a nark, I started work.
So, I had this layout on my desk that looks suspiciously like cssbeauty.com (Damn, it’s a nice design) and I began work on the back-end. Then, later on that day I went on a gut feeling and scrapped the layout, and redesigned it. Thanks to the power of the include function and the flexibility of CSS I was able to do something completely different.
I don’t know what it was, but at some point, all my plans went very Web 2.0 - with the implementation of tagging (you know, that think that Flickr and Del.icio.us are doing - it’s all the rage) and some AJAX features (I’m really going for the whole “user experience” thing these days…).
This might sound like I’m jumping on the bandwagon - but Web 2.0 is no fad. I think that the term means more than just a collection of technologies and ideas, but more as a way of re-defining the Internet. I’d like to see a more dynamic approach to the web (see Gmail or A9, for example) and with the recent signs that this might be the end of the Internet as we know it it is reassuring to know that the web public are pushing these revolutions in technologies and taking the emphasis from the corporations, and putting it back with us. Remember, we make the Internet.
Web 1.0 was designed by people in big offices, getting paid big money to develop applications that at the time were very savvy. Web 2.0, however, is built by enthusiasts between reading Slashdot and browsing Amazon, to fill a gap - to enhance our experience. I think we are realistically, in the next three years, looking at an Internet where we will no longer have to refresh a page to check for updates - where all websites can work together, and I’m not just talking about posting my Flickr gallery in my Blogger entries, then bookmarking them with del.icio.us and tagging them at Technorati. I’m talking about a more connected Internet.
Anyway, things are moving quickly, and I’m not going to be left behind this time. I’d best get back to my coding.
