According to ARTech's Vice President Nicolás Jodal, the world is currently ruled by three platforms that define the technical aspects the world is headed for: Java, .NET, and Lamp.
“Java, that is more powerful in the world but whose growth is deteriorating in the United States, is growing basically due to three reasons. First, old users of former platforms are using this language. At the same time, Sun Microsystems, decided to release the Java code to the community making it Open Source; and finally, the release of Java Bean 2.0 as an attempt to simplify the code writing.” explained Jodal.
As regards .NET, it is also growing in the world, but it is growing faster in the United States. Jodal thinks this is due mainly to the relationship of Microsoft with the government in that country. Anyway, C# is more popular than Visual Basic.NET; and ASP.NET applications are more popular than Winform.
And as far as Lamp is concerned, it has a number of important misunderstandings, according to the ARTech's Vice President. “There is an enduring discussion over dynamic language versus static language.” Jodal assured that this will be an endless debate, since it is related to programmers capacity and the characteristics: “some of them like handling static language, while others prefer dynamic language”. “Therefore, as far as GeneXus is concerned, the centre of the debate is which language to generate in the near future: PHP or Ruby. While the former is highly popular and is supported by IBM and Oracle, the latter has a steady and profuse growth”, he remarked.
For ARTech’s vice president, there are also three elements that mark the current development trends: the release of Windows Vista, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web 2.0.
“With the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft is seeking to eliminate the differences between the Winform and the Webform". For this purpose, instead of generating everything on html code, Jodal explained that the new Windows version will be written in what has been called Windows Presentation Foundation. This feature will be present not only in Windows Vista but also in Framework 3.0, which will run on Windows XP, which means there will be great incentive and pressure to work on this platform.
According to Jodal, the key is to use integration through messages instead of integration through objectives. The goal is to generate SOA applications without the need to program. “This is where GeneXus is headed for” remarked Jodal.
On the other hand, since Tim O’Reilly created the Web 2.0 concept, 100% web applications started to mushroom and are currently as famous as they are successful. It is the case of Writely, a text processor wholly integrated to a browser.
“The result of this is that the new applications will generate a sort of continuous beta testing, since all are web applications and therefore it is not necessary to upgrade in all customers.” Jodal explained.
What is the future of GeneXus in this world of trends?
What is the future of Rocha? The CTP version may currently be downloaded from www.genexus.com/rocha. According to ARTech’s vice president, one of the main new developments of GeneXus 10th version will be the incorporation of a Wiki and forums integrated to the program, allowing all the individuals involved in the development of an application, from end users to developers, to participate and collaborate in the process. Another important development at the development environment level is the incorporation of a universal search by text or Full Text Search. The non-structured categorization based on tags to the various attributes, and the possibility of integrating other components, are some of the new developments presented in the new version.
But, because the future is built based on the present, Nicolás Jodal talked about GeneXus in the short and medium term at the end of the conference at the XVI GeneXus International Event. “More and improved Strategic Partners. To the current work with IBM, Oracle and Microsoft, we added Amazon Web Services, where it will be possible to use Linux users’ applications. More and larger Community”
Nowadays, the GeneXus Community has over 40,000 members with more than 18,000 people registered in the news, 23 forums with 14,000 members and over 100,000 e-mails sent to the forums every year. Because “what is important is not just sharing but working, and working together”, Jodal pointed out.