Joel forecasts the SDK of the future...
Joel Spolsky is generally a great writer, but he didn't do his research for today's post. He claims that with the web, JavaScript is the new assembly language: it's capable but not portable:[...] build a programming language, like C, that’s portable and efficient. It should compile down to “native” code (native code being JavaScript and DOMs) with different backends for different target platforms
So far, so good. But then he goes on to describe how this strategy will take Google by surprise, leading the giant to its demise:
Imagine, for example, that you’re Google with GMail, and you’re feeling rather smug. But then somebody you’ve never heard of, some bratty Y Combinator startup, maybe, is gaining ridiculous traction selling NewSDK, which combines a great portable programming language that compiles to JavaScript, and even better, a huge Ajaxy library that includes all kinds of clever interop features.
Joel clearly hasn't heard of GWT. It's a complete implementation of his genius idea, and it was first released in May 2006. And its creator? Google.
