Everything Old Is New Again

I simply could not resist pointing out and chuckling about this article on Web Worker Daily: Offline Applications: A Brighter Future Than You Think. (I am not precisely sure why I still have Web Worker Daily in my feed reader; it seems to be geared more toward those people who think they are IT consultants because they use Gmail and Instant Messaging and setup their church’s web site.)

So “offline” applications have a bright future? Reeeeeeaaaalllly. How amazing! What could such a fantastic-sounding application be? From the post: “What’s an example of an offline application? One example would be using GMail offline while sitting on an airplane–drafting and reading messages–and then synching back up when you’re online. When synched, you get your messages that you created sent, and other offline tasks automatically done online.” Golly, that’s some fancy schmancy high-tech wizardry there! Who would have ever thought we’d advance far enough in computing technology to have such “offline” applications? I sure am glad I’ve lived to see this day.

Sorry about the sarcasm, but that article really cracked me up. I love being right about technology fads. Maybe this supposedly bright future in “offline” applications will push managers into hiring more skilled veteran workers instead of college kids hyped up on free Mountain Dew and Fritos (*looks at Google*) — after all, we’ve been writing “offline” applications for, oh, 15 years or so. And that’s just in MY memory. The really grizzled programmers have been doing it for much longer than that.