Is native application programming dead?

[slugg]

Just wondering. All the talk I hear from programmers all the time is about PHP, ASP.NET, and SQL servers. I very rarely hear anything about application software anymore. Everyone seems to be making web apps for everything.

I absolutely hate web development. Should I suck it up and join the bandwagon? I'm really bored as of late. I don't have any good ideas to keep myself busy...

 

[KLin]

Mobile Apps.

 

[presidentender]

Bandwagon for the win! Go to where the jobs are. The jobs are web apps.

 

[squatchman]

Just remember that there will always be someone willing to do a "popular" job for less than what you want to be paid.

Pick up Ruby, Qt, or some other hybrid language/framework that will at least allow you the option of writing something that isn't automatically required to be digestible through HTML and Flash. Remember that it isn't webapps that are popular, but the idea of portable software.

 

[SJP0tato]

My knee jerk response is because it's easier for a company to sell a "service" of some kind, than to deal with boxing up a product and having to deal with distribution and installation for multiple platforms. HTML is the one thing that's "mostly" universal between everything.

 

[slugg]

Originally posted by: squatchman
Just remember that there will always be someone willing to do a "popular" job for less than what you want to be paid.

Pick up Ruby, Qt, or some other hybrid language/framework that will at least allow you the option of writing something that isn't automatically required to be digestible through HTML and Flash. Remember that it isn't webapps that are popular, but the idea of portable software.

Oh man I forgot about Qt. You've got me interested in it. I remember hearing about it, but I never quite looked into it.

So let me get this straight... Qt is a set of libraries that are implemented for several platforms, so all I have to do is recompile the source on separate platforms?

 

[aceO07]

Originally posted by: SJP0tato
My knee jerk response is because it's easier for a company to sell a "service" of some kind, than to deal with boxing up a product and having to deal with distribution and installation for multiple platforms. HTML is the one thing that's "mostly" universal between everything.

Yes, I agree with you. Companies want to go with a service model. Create a product and lease it. Easiest want to do that is over the internet where the server can be protected at the company.

 

[Markbnj]

I think there is quite a bit of thick client development still going on. Looking around my desktop almost all the icons are shortcuts to native apps. But I think the focus has definitely shifted away from investment in shrink-wrapped packages. Companies develop apps for support or marketing reasons. With WPF and Silverlight, and of course the continuing dominance of Flash, I think we'll see more and more boundary-blurring here too.

 

[BoberFett]

For the enterprise, the client/server model makes the most sense. You can save money using thin clients and/or virtual desktops. Upgrades are simple. Mobility is built-in. And collaboration happens naturally.

Some apps still work better on the fat client, but only those that use large files or would require huge bandwidth to run remotely. Software developers will continue to be local, graphics/DTP, video editing, games. But since most applications spend 99% of their time waiting for user input and are based on simple text data (spreadsheets, word processing, database access) client/server is the most logical.

 

[dinkumthinkum]

I hate web apps too. So, last year I decided to go back to school.

If you're bored, why not play around and learn how to write cool systems stuff like compilers and operating systems? About as far away from web-apps as you can get, and the resources available to learn and experiment are great these days.

 

[Kirby]

increased demand for low-level and emebedded programmers = more money?

*crosses fingers*

 

[NiKeFiDO]

Adobe air = web apps on your desktop

Although I might just have my fingers crossed, being so immersed in the web dev world.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Anyone that does embedded application does real coding.

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004
Anyone that does embedded application does real coding.

Strongly agree. It seems that is best match for OP.

However, you gotta know C.

 

[JasonCoder]

Just keep looking. It's out there, just not as in your face as web apps.

 

[degibson]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA

Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004
Anyone that does embedded application does real coding.

Strongly agree. It seems that is best match for OP.

However, you gotta know C.

Strongly agree as well. Anyone who wouldn't appreciate a one-bit atomic read-modify-write operation to I/O space is missing out.

 

[squatchman]

Originally posted by: slugg
Oh man I forgot about Qt. You've got me interested in it. I remember hearing about it, but I never quite looked into it.

So let me get this straight... Qt is a set of libraries that are implemented for several platforms, so all I have to do is recompile the source on separate platforms?

Sure, but more specifically for my situation: It brings a lot of the features you would find in something like the Java API to a language like C++. Concurrency, collections, and a robust GUI programming toolkit are just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

How is embedded as a long term prospect though? Realistically, tech keeps getting more and more compressed. How long before cells phones and the like have sufficient memory and processing power to not need any one bit atomic anything?

 

[slugg]

Well I do most of my programming in C. Most of what I do is in computer vision and digital imaging, but it's strictly academic. I haven't seen much in terms of popularity and job availability in anything other than web apps.

So what, am I pretty much stuck in a niche? Should I continue in this area or should I get into high level programming?

I made some stupid SQL database interface for an inventory system a couple weeks ago. It was too... boring. I'm hoping to get busy with something else. I've got a cool project coming to me this summer, but for now, I'm terribly bored.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

How about web apps for a job and the cool imaging stuff as a hobby?

 

[degibson]

Originally posted by: slugg
Well I do most of my programming in C. Most of what I do is in computer vision and digital imaging, but it's strictly academic. I haven't seen much in terms of popularity and job availability in anything other than web apps.

You can try the systems community... M$, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, etc.. Its not exactly vision and imaging, but they all do data mining operations in various flavors and have a firm appreciation for C.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: nkgreen
increased demand for low-level and emebedded programmers = more money?

*crosses fingers*

== opportunity for more money and greater stability within the field

 

[slugg]

Originally posted by: degibson

Originally posted by: slugg
Well I do most of my programming in C. Most of what I do is in computer vision and digital imaging, but it's strictly academic. I haven't seen much in terms of popularity and job availability in anything other than web apps.

You can try the systems community... M$, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, etc.. Its not exactly vision and imaging, but they all do data mining operations in various flavors and have a firm appreciation for C.

True. So how would an individual get started with data mining? I have absolutely no idea how to even get my feet wet.

Oh and BTW, my project this summer is computer vision based artificial intelligence for the NASA Mars Rover project (JPL). This is going to be fun and a killer resume booster, but then again, what kind of job market would be interested in this kind of resume?

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: slugg

Originally posted by: degibson

Originally posted by: slugg
Well I do most of my programming in C. Most of what I do is in computer vision and digital imaging, but it's strictly academic. I haven't seen much in terms of popularity and job availability in anything other than web apps.

You can try the systems community... M$, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, etc.. Its not exactly vision and imaging, but they all do data mining operations in various flavors and have a firm appreciation for C.

True. So how would an individual get started with data mining? I have absolutely no idea how to even get my feet wet.

Oh and BTW, my project this summer is computer vision based artificial intelligence for the NASA Mars Rover project (JPL). This is going to be fun and a killer resume booster, but then again, what kind of job market would be interested in this kind of resume?

Homeland Security, Map Analysis/Intelligence & Facial Recognition applications

 

[JACKDRUID]

Originally posted by: KLin
Mobile Apps.

Mobile web Apps