Rails之父Hansson等大腕预测2007技术趋势

转自http://java.sys-con.com/read/313594.htm。

At the end of each year, when SYS-CON informally polls its globe-girdling network of software developers, industry executives, commentators, investors, writers, and editors, our question is always the same: where's the industry going next year?

Every time, the answers are surprisingly different from the year before, and of course throw light not just on where the industry is going but also how it's going to get there, why, because of who, within what kind of time-scale - all that good stuff.

Enjoy!
Ruby on Rails . JRuby . AJAX . Rules-Based Programming

JASON BELL
Enterprise Developer, Editorial Board Member, Java Developer's Journal

My predictions for 2007....

1.  Incremental mainstream adoption of Ruby on Rails
It's going to happen, isn't it? Keep an eye out for Sun's offering of JRuby. Whether this is the death of other open source scripting languages like Groovy remains to be seen. Ruby has been a wake-up call and has now drawn the line dividing serious scripting languages from "hobby" languages (ones that wouldn't see enterprise adoption). For me, my job just got a whole lot easier, a whole lot quicker.

2.  A slowdown in the AJAX hype
I think the shine has worn off. There are some nice applications about but at the end of the day it's a Web page with some very fancy JavaScript.

3.  2007 is the year of the business rule
Rules-based programming will be big business. With the likes of JBoss acquiring Drools it's certainly an area to keep an eye on.

LAMP . REST . ATOM . Apple

DAVID HEINEMEIER HANSSON
Creator of (Ruby on) Rails

1.  2007 will be the year where LAMPers finally decide to stop being neutral about the WS-* mess and pick the side of REST: the next wave of Web APIs will stop supplying both a SOAP and REST API and just go with the latter.

2.  On the leading edge, we'll see the same for RSS vs ATOM. For techies in the know, ATOM will become the assumed default syndication format and that'll mark the slow decline of RSS (though more as a technology than as a brand, RSS will remain synonymous with feeds).

3.  Apple will continue to trounce everyone else for the preferred geek platform. The stigma of being a Web programmer still using Windows will increase.

Vista . Office 2007 . Zune . AJAX . Ruby . Java . Ruby on Rails . Flash Memory

GARY CORNELL
Founder & Publisher, Apress

In no particular order:

1. IE 7 will have a fast adoption curve and so Firefox will cease gaining market share.
2. Vista will have a slow adoption curve.
3. Office 2007 will have a slower adoption curve.
4. Oh, the Zune will have no adoption curve.
5. The AJAX bandwagon will gain even more speed.
6. Ruby's momentum will slow down as Python and PHP frameworks to combat Rails grow in popularity.
7. The open-sourcing of Java will have no effect whatsoever on Java's slow decline in favor of dynamic languages (Ruby, Python) and C#.
8. Sales of high powered desktop will slow.
9. Apple will no longer gain market share for its desktops and will stabilize at its current meaningless level.
10. Ultra lightweight notebooks based on flash memory with instant on/off will start coming out in large numbers.

SOA & Web 2.0 . "Outside-In SOA" . Semantic Web . AJAX

DAVID S. LINTHICUM
CEO, The Linthicum Group

1.  The worlds of SOA and the Web 2.0 blur together. While many who think SOA don't think Web 2.0, and many who think Web 2.0 don't think SOA, those days will come to a fast end in 2007. So, what does this mean to those standing up SOAs today? It's clear that many of the services we consume and mange going forward will be services that exist outside of the enterprise, such as subscription services from guys like Salesforce.com, or perhaps emerging Web services marketplaces from guys like StrikeIron, Google, Amazon, and others. This is outside-in SOA, in essence reusing a service in an enterprise not created by that enterprise, much as we do today with information on the Web. Thus, those services outside of the enterprise existing on the Internet create a Universal SOA, ready to connect to your enterprise SOA, perhaps providing more value.

2.  The rise of the Semantic Web. The Semantic Web is the abstract representation of data on the World Wide Web, based on the Resource Description Framework (RDF) standards and other standards. Although this notion has been around for some time, in 2007 it will greatly affect how we design, build, and deploy Web 2.0 applications and SOAs, providing a mechanism to track and leverage application semantics, local and remote.

3.  Enterprise applications continue to move outside the enterprise. With the success of Salesforce.com and many others, we'll continue to see applications move to the Web including accounting, CRM, HR management, logistics, inventory management, etc. While many Global 2000 companies will fight this trend, the success of the younger and more nimble up-starts will drive this movement quickly.

4.  The success of AJAX drives traditional software back to the drawing boards. With the ability to finally provide dynamic rich content and applications over the Web, traditional software vendors will find that they need new products to play in this new world. Indeed, as Google Mail is giving Microsoft fits, so will other more innovative Web-delivered applications leveraging rich client technology such as AJAX. Entire interfaces will have to be rewritten to support AJAX, and end users will demand that we move away from traditional pump-and-pull HTTP programming.

Mobile AJAX . "Mobile Web 2.0" . SMS . LBS Flash Lite . On-Device Portals

LUCA PASSANI
Wireless Guru & Technology Evangelist, Openwave

Here are my predictions for 2007:

1.  AJAX will still be hyped, but we will still see no mobile AJAX-based killer apps, only proofs of concept.

2.  JAVA ME will not gain much more ground. Too fragmented. Games and some other apps. No killer apps though.

3.  What people call "Mobile Web 2.0" is not Web browsing. Saying that mobile and Web will converge is trendy in some environments these days. This is wrong and that's hardly surprising: people buy phones to make calls, not to browse the Web, so why should we expect phones to get so much better at browsing the Web?

4.  SMS will still represent 80% or more of data traffic. The rest will be downloads: ringtones, wallpapers and games. WAP will be mostly used as a discovery mechanism to get to those contents. Reformatting proxies to adapt Web content for mobile will be implemented by most operators. They will increase browsing a bit, but nothing earth-shattering.

5.  Not sure about Location-Based Services. LBS have been on the verge of explosion for some time now.

6.  Flash Lite will make significant progress in Europe and North America, also on operator portals.

7.  On-Device Portals are an interesting development: content gets pushed to devices while the user isn't watching and they may decide later to buy it or not. This will be trendy next here. It will be interesting to see which actual implementations of the concept deliver.

8.  More people will realize that device fragmentation is one of the main hurdles for mobile.

Flash Memory . AJAX Productivity . Red Hat . Vista Notebooks . Ubuntu

MARK HINKLE
Editor-in-Chief, Enterprise Open Source Magazine

Here are my predictions:

1.  Flash-bootable PCs - It's been a long-time coming but laptop PCs will start booting from flash memory. This will make a huge difference in battery life. Intel will lead the way pushing their NAND flash boot memory on a new laptop platform and Apple will be among the first to adopt. The One Laptop per Child initiative will also provide a demonstration of the first zero disk drive PCs albeit small. Devices like this will inspire creativity on higher end models especially as the price of non-volatile memory continues to drop.

2.  New Crop of AJAX Productivity Applications - While the buzz around AJAX may fade, the number of robust new AJAX-enabled applications will increase. These applications will be built on evolving AJAX frameworks like Dojo and Rico and commercially backed platforms like OpenLazlo. Of course every new start-up will be secretly hoping for Google to make a bid and join the family that has been expanded this year by Writely and Jotspot.

3.  Red Hat Will Become an Acquisition Target - Someone will make a bid on the #1 Linux vendor. Maybe Oracle who has done a number on the leading Linux vendor with Unbreakable Linux will take advantage of Red Hat's near 52-week low. Uncertainty and ambiguity in the enterprise Linux market will send Red Hat looking for another partner to avoid being swallowed by the DB maker. Maybe IBM will become Red Hat's white knight.

4.  Open Source Everywhere - More and more companies will open source legacy products and launch new ones under open source licenses. Database vendor Ingres is going to set the standard that other more conservative infrastructure vendors will follow. Look for new open source initiatives from major infrastructure vendors like BMC, VMware, and even Microsoft.

5.  Microsoft Vista Launch Will Boost Sales of Other OSes - Microsoft's launch of Vista will start to prompt hardware refreshes which can be nothing but good for Apple. Apple already has momentum, Intel hardware, dropping prices and all the tumblers are becoming aligned for it to creep above its measly 5% market share. Linux desktop vendors will likely see a few defectors from the Redmond camp, though big ships turn slowly. Look for Ubuntu to be the Linux desktop distribution of choice.

6.  Half of All New PCs Will Be Notebooks - PC buyers are buying more notebooks every quarter and sometime in 2007 the number of shipping notebooks will match the number of desktop PCs or come very close.

IT Enabled Services . Web TV . Visual AJAX IDE Microsoft Atlas . Apache XAP

COACH WEI
Founder, Chairman, & CTO, NexaWeb

Here are my submissions:

1. IT Enabled Services is going to fly high in 2007. As a result, we will see:
   a.  A lot more venture capital investments into IT Enabled Services;
   b.  Of course, a lot of startup activities in IT Enabled Services (new company creation, merger and acquisition);
   c.  There will be some significant moves made by "traditional, big companies" into IT Enabled Services too. For example, some of the possibilities are:
   i.  Massive reality shows on the Web, instead of being on TV. Can you imagine "American Idol" on the Web? Speaking of this, I think highly of Yahoo's initiative into this area, including its recent acquisition of Bix.
   ii.  A major entertainment company (NBC, ABC, etc.) fully embracing Web TV.
   
   
2. AJAX grows up - which means the following are available and useable:
   a.  Visual AJAX IDE (solving the ease-of-development issue. Most likely based on Eclipse ATF);
   b.  Declarative AJAX Framework (solving the ease-of-development issue. Most likely based on Microsoft Atlas and Apache XAP);
   c.  Adoption of AJAX within less leading-edge enterprises.
   d.  AJAXWorld Conference overtakes JavaOne conference. JavaOne is being renamed as JavaScriptOne Conference.
   
   
3. Growing adoption of Web 2.0 technologies within the enterprise
   a.  Enterprise Mashup Server emerges as a product category.
   b.  Less leading-edge companies start to adoption Web 2.0 technologies.
   
   
4. The IPO market shows signs of opening up
   a.  One or two Web 2.0 companies go public, the majority of the exits are acquisitions.
   b.  An increase of IPO filings and going public.

WS-BPEL 2.0 . BPM & Web 2.0 . SOA . XSLT . JSON

JOHN EVDEMON
Architect, Microsoft, with the Architecture Strategy Team focusing on BPM and SOA

E.F. Schumacher, a well-known British economist, once wrote: "I cannot predict the wind but I can have my sail ready." With that thought in mind here are ten predictions and hopes to help get your sails ready for 2007:

1.  The WS-BPEL 2.0 specification will finally be approved as an OASIS standard. Adoption of WS-BPEL will initially be slow, driven by customer demand. BPEL will evolve beyond a "check box requirement" if people begin using it as a foundation for defining process profiles (conceptually similar to how people use WS-Security today). An updated mapping from BPMN to WS-BPEL will also be published.

2.  The convergence of BPM and Web 2.0 begins. BPM is about improving performance by optimizing key processes. Web 2.0 is about capturing the wisdom of crowds (or as O'Reilly puts it, the architecture of participation). The convergence of BPM and Web 2.0 enables collaborative development and tagging of sub-processes, establishing a "process folksonomy" where the best processes can evolve organically. Collaboration can occur over simple but highly scalable pub/sub mechanisms (like Atom or SSE). Lightweight tools will enable users to model or reuse sub-processes using a broad set of metadata. While this is an exciting opportunity, there are several technical and non-technical issues that must be addressed before this convergence becomes a reality.

3.  Improvements in SOA management and governance. Tools, frameworks and platforms will emerge that better enable:

• Defining and enforcing service development guidelines
• Modeling, managing and enforcing operational policies (e.g., security, service level agreements and others)
• Service simulations (what-if scenarios, impact analysis, etc.)
• Modeling and managing service dependencies
• Service provisioning and de-provisioning
• Configuration management

4.  Workflow isn't confined to the datacenter anymore. Lightweight, extensible frameworks like Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) enable workflow in places where it may not have been previously considered.

5.  Better UI Experiences. Declarative user interfaces will enable rich user experiences that can be easily modified or extended with simple mechanisms like XSLT. Familiar business applications like Office provide the user interface to back-end line-of-business systems. The line between AJAX-based UIs and rich desktop UIs will blur, enabling users to enjoy both connected and occasionally-connected experiences. Tools and guidance will make building, testing and deploying these composite UI experiences much easier.

6.  A new category of architecture emerges: Software + Services. It is hard these days to find an architectural concept that is not some how tied to services. The line between Web services, SaaS and traditional applications will blur to the point where the location, contract and hosting of a service are less important than the capabilities exposed by the service.

7.  JSON without AJAX. We'll start to see more people using JSON to address the XML bloat problem outside of simple AJAX-based applications. The downside is that this may result in more tightly-coupled applications.

8.  Events and states instead of EDI-style messaging. Lightweight frameworks will empower developers to starting thinking about solutions in terms of event notifications instead of simple messages passing from point A to point B. Hierarchical state machines enable state synchronization across complex, federated processes.

9.  We stop talking about SOA and "just do it." Sometimes we spend more time arguing about IT trends than actually using them. In 2007 the tools and specifications we need for enterprise-strength, loosely-coupled solutions have finally arrived - it's time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

10.  IT finally admits that there is no silver bullet. Every year I hope to see this happen and every year my hopes are crushed by buzzword-of-the-minute hype machines. (Hey I can dream, can't I?)

AJAX Over-use . JSF . Relational Object Mapping . Macs

BILL DUDNEY
Editor-in-Chief, Eclipse Developer's Journal

1. AJAX will continue to gain momentum as folks continue to have the epiphany that Web 1.0 UI is not good for users. Overuse of the technology will be a real problem. JSF will finally start to become a de facto as well as actual standard due to its ease of integration with AJAX.
2. Open Source enablement will continue to be a hot spot for VC investment. I don't think the perfect business model will emerge in '07 though so the market will still remain 'immature.'
3. Java Persistence API will bring relational object mapping to the long tail of the market. Early adopters will be wondering what all the hype is because the technology is so old in their eyes.
4. Macs will continue their 'thought leader' adoption curve. This is not the year they start to penetrate the corporate IT department.

Web Service Orchestration . Web Services Explosion

ADAM KOLAWA
Co-Founder & CEO, Parasoft

1.  I anticipate a significant demand for Web service orchestration in the upcoming year, especially in the United States.

Many organizations now have at least one Web service, and a growing number already have two or more related Web services. Managing multiple related Web services is considerably more challenging than managing the same number of separate, unrelated Web services. To use these related Web services to achieve your business goals, you need to consider how high-level operations pass through the Web services, then determine how to implement this high-level flow- from start to finish. This can be accomplished in two ways:
- By programmatically coding the application logic required to tie the involved elements together.
- By using an orchestration tool to direct the flow through the involved elements, which remain separate.

I predict that the latter method will be the favorite because it is easier.

2.  I also expect an explosion of Web services because they are so easy to expose. Once exposed, Web services basically create interfaces which can be reused. This will significantly reduce the amount of code that needs to written, which will in turn cut the demand for "bare bones" development.

Server Virtualization . Container-Based Hosting . Linux Rails . Django . Agile Development

BRANDON HARPER
Senior Software Developer at Acxiom Corp.

The top five technology trends I see happening in the New Year are:

1.  Server virtualization is just getting started, and will really make itself known in the coming year. Once we start seeing the quad core CPU architectures as a part of standard infrastructure, it really starts making a lot of sense to start deploying and managing servers and applications as virtual entities rather than specific pieces of hardware. This helps manage the cost and pain of software configuration management, take advantage of being able to process many tasks simultaneously because of hardware support, as well as allows legacy hardware to be retired in favor of applications running on virtual servers.

2.  Container-based hosting is the new kid on the block, and will also start making its presence known in the upcoming year. Commonly labeled as "grid" hosting (which is a technical misnomer if you understand distributed computing), it essentially claims to be an infinitely scalable hosting platform. This technology still seems to be half-baked at the moment, but you could have said the same thing about Linux ten years ago.

3.  People who normally wouldn't use Linux start to explore it and even replace Windows with it permanently. With Vista, Microsoft seems to be moving to a model in which the Windows operating system is a method to police users with DRM and other nonsense rather than provide developers with a good platform on which to use hardware, which is what operating systems are really supposed to be. A lot more consumers who haven't noticed this happening in the past will stand up and notice this year.

4.  Dynamic languages and frameworks will continue to make leaps in popularity and adoption. Given the current squeeze on technology talent in the US, companies are going to have to learn how to do more with fewer resources. Moving to dynamic languages and frameworks as well as other simplification such as varying Agile software development practices will enable this to take place. I think the obvious leading candidates here are Ruby on Rails and Django.

5.  The enterprise will embrace ways to simplify develop-ment by continuing to embrace open source software and Agile Development strategies. While there are a lot of cries to the effect of Ruby on Rails replacing Java, I think that's complete nonsense as Java is a language and Ruby on Rails is a framework. Rapid development languages will certainly make some inroads, particularly where heavy tools have been used to build simple applications, Java is still going to be a major part of the service-oriented enterprise for years to come because of the power and tools it provides as well as its industry support.

SIDEBAR

SaaS . Open Source . Mobile . Enterprise IM Social Networks . China . Virtualization . RFID . Internet Video . Prediction Networks . Intelligent Wikis

The Z Generation CIO & IT Professional
By Bob Zurek
Director of Advanced Technologies with IBM Information Integration Solutions

The Z Generation is typically described as those who are born sometime during the early 2000s and continue to the 2017 time frame. So what will these Generation Z IT Professionals be experienced with. Here's my prediction for the Top Ten characteristics (and this is just the tip of the iceberg):

1. Grew up in the world of SaaS and open source and wonders why you would ever license and install software. If you still needed to install software, then it should be available in the form of open source. Expects all internal projects to be developed using the open source model.
2. Grew up with a mobile technology and wonders how anyone could run a business without it. Insists everything be available on a highly portable digital device and everyone in the organization have a device. No exceptions.
3. Grew up knowing how to leverage the power of social networks for the benefit of the corporation. This includes the ability to build out these networks and use them to help build new products and technologies. Generation Z CIOs will have a huge advantage as they have grown up as participants in many social networks. China will be a big source of these networks. Websites will be built by the Z Generation CIO to invite outsiders in to help build new and innovative products that have yet to be thought of by the enterprises internal employees.
4. Grew up using Instant Messaging and will insist that the enterprise use IM as a priority over email and that email will only be used if the communications can't be done using the features of the future enterprise IM platform.
5. Will tap into offerings such as TopCoder.com to supplement project teams. There will be a world of competing Topcoder.com like sites where the best coders in the world will be found to solve very complex algorithms and other challenging software projects facing the IT department. China will be a major provider of these teams.
6. Grew up with a complete understanding of the value of virtualization and therefore, their datacenter will be virtualized and the IT operating fabric will be grid-based, tapping the power of external grids of CPU.
7. RFID Everywhere. The Z Generation will be the ones that take RFID to new heights. Everything that is taggable will be tagged and tracked.
8. CIO and Z Generation IT Professionals will leverage the power of Internet video by taking advantage of companies like BrightCove Networks which will bring knowledge workers engaging channels like "The Customer Service Channel", "The Corporate Strategy Channel", "The M&A Channel" and others. I can see companies like Harvard Business Review and others producing content for these channels. Imagine the "The DataCenter Channel." The topics are endless and will be as easy to find as bringing up your favorite search engine. New content will be generated targeted for companies like "The IBM Channel" or the "GE Channel." I would love to see "The Institute of The Future Channel"
9. Intelligent Wikis will be the primary source of knowledge in an enterprise and will eventually do what data warehousing did for business intelligence. Furthermore, new internal employee-generated communities will spin up to voluntarily invent new projects during their off-hours to showcase their creativity that is typically not known by the employer.
10. CIOs will aggressively adopt Prediction Networks as part of the core business strategy to better help the enterprise gauge where everything from sales to new product development will be successful.

SIDEBAR 2

Open Source Java . General Public License v2 . GPL v3

Consequences of Open-Sourcing Java
by Tony Wasserman
Professor of Software Engineering Practice at Carnegie Mellon West and Executive Director of the Center for Open Source Investigation (COSI) The open-sourcing of Java under the GPL 2 license will have a ripple effect on various technical and business issues in 2007:

• First, people will closely study the Java source code and find one or more serious bugs, at least one of which has been there since the earliest days of Java.
• Second, a real-time systems vendor will fork the source code, as permitted by the GPL, and create a variant that is "tuned" for real-time applications. This step will be the focus of a major debate within the Java community.
• Third, the open-sourcing of Java will have a positive impact on the adoption and use of open source software in general.
• Fourth, the use of the GPL 2 for open-sourcing Java will inhibit the completion and acceptance of the GPL 3 proposal.

SIDEBAR 3

Open Sun . iPod Uno . IT2 . Microsoft VAPOR

...And in Other 2007 News
by Richard Monson-Haefel
Award-Winning Author & Senior Analyst, Burton Group

1.  Jonathan Schwartz open-sources Sun Microsystems.
In a move that will surprise everyone Sun Microsystems will announce that it will open source its entire company. Sales, marketing, finance, and even operations will be open to the community for anyone to contribute.

2.  Apple computer announces the iPod Uno.
The size of a match stick with no screen or controls, the iPod Uno plays one song in a constant loop. Despite its limited capabilities, the tiny device becomes an instant hit and a cultural icon.

3.  In what is heralded as the seminal article on the subject, Tim Berners-Lee mentions "IT2"
Overnight the term morphs into "IT 2.0," spawning thousands of blog entries and press articles, a dozen books, five conferences, and millions of dollars in venture capital. It turns out that the original article, incomprehensible to most readers, was actually another attempt to explain the Semantic Web and the IT2 reference was just a typo.

4.  Microsoft will create the first CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) position.
The new CMO will immediately change his own title to Chief Command & Control of Packaging Officer (C3PO) and then announce that Vista will be delayed and renamed Microsoft Virtualization Application Program Operating system Reloaded (Microsoft VAPOR).