TechEssence.info

Since I'm in the middle of moving from one software platform to another (leaving JSPs and Struts for Ruby on Rails if you must know), software choices have been on my mind. But then I picked up my latest Business 2.0 that came the other day and there it was. An article on Coghead, which aims to make code disappear and even the most code-phobic person able to create applications.

Go check it out. Sure, it leans heavily toward the needs of businesses at the moment, and there is only so much you can see at the moment given that it is in limited beta release, but the promise is there. The idea is that you go to their web site, make some choices, drag and drop some things onto a page and before you know it you've created your own little software application. This appears to be the logical end point of a progression in web-based tools that are dead easy to use and require nothing in the way of infrastructure except access to the Internet -- which of course is free in many public libraries.

Other applications I put in this category are:

• Gliffy.com - This site offers an easy way to create diagrams of various kinds. It comes complete with the standard set of flow chart symbols and floorplan graphics as well as a few other symbol libraries. You simply drag and drop the symbols you want onto your workspace, connecting them up as you go. You can save your work on the site and come back to it, or export as an image file.

• Zoho.com - This site has a full set of office productivity applications, including word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and a pile of others. You save your work on the site, or export it in various formats.

What has made many of these web-based applications possible is Ajax. Although when Java first came out it was touted as the technology to bring true interactivity to the web, it never really delivered on that promise. Instead, a number of years later, it was the combinarion of Javascript and XML (Ajax) that enabled it. Now we are beginning to see the fruits of this interactivity revolution -- simple tasks (and even many that aren't so simple) are now, finally, simple. Long may it reign.