Google Docs

Having worked on web applications for a while I find the concept of an entire office suite running as a web application really amazing. It wasn't too long ago that this would have been entirely a pipe dream.

Google has been pushing the envelope quite a while - I remember when GMail was launched and we all marvelled at their courage, launching a web application for the masses, but one which broke backwards compatibility with any web browser more than a couple of years old. It made heavy use of a technique which has come to be known as AJAX, whereby scripts on the web page itself can send or receive information to or from the server and update parts of the page, negating the need for an entire new page request to be made and a new page loaded. This allows for more responsive, richer web applications which still store their data on a remote server and still require no applications to be installed on the user's machine, apart from the browser alone.

In its current state I see Google Docs as a proof of concept, rather than a serious attempt to take Microsoft's territory. Previously, not many would have imagined that an entire office suite could be run as a web application, and yet still be easy enough to use, flexible, quick enough to respond, and interoperable with documents from other office suites. Still, by proving it to be possible it at least hints that web applications may start to threaten traditional desktop applications.

One problem with web applications, at least historically, is the latency of the web. It takes time for anything you submit on a web page to be transmitted to the server, and for the server to respond with a new page containing what you wanted. Loading a new page is the traditional way to navigate around a web application. However, applications like GMail and Google Docs overcome this by loading virtually the entire application in a single web page containing scripts, so that most navigation within the application does not require information to be submitted back to the server or waiting for a response, because it is running locally.

A great benefit of web applications is that they require no installation of software on the local machine - a person with a web browser can visit the web application and begin using it immediately. This is in contrast to, for example, a desktop office suite which requires a somewhat complicated installation process, if it is not pre-installed on the computer.

There are sometimes compatibility issues with older or less-popular browsers, though most web applications support a range of recently released browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Konqueror/Safari, Opera and their derivatives) supporting various platforms. One drawback is that many modern web applications are incompatible with the simple browsers found on phones or PDAs. Google produce 'mobile' versions of some of these applications, such as Gmail and Google Reader, which can be used on these devices. But they don't support the features of the full application, and are not nearly as quick or responsive, requiring page reloads to navigate around them.

I don't use Google Docs regularly, though I use Gmail and Google Reader from time to time, both which are applications that have only recently become attractive alternatives to desktop applications - in this case, email clients and feed readers.