Back in 2006, the company I ran created a utility ...

2008-12-09T13:57:00.000Z

Back in 2006, the company I ran created a utility computing cloud which contained a JavaScript application framework known as Zimki (it is now defunct, as it was closed in 2007).

This system enabled entire applications both front end and back end to be built in JavaScript.

Now this complicates the picture slightly because this provides the benefits of componentisation at a slightly higher level of the computing stack (the framework layer containing the development platform, the database, messaging, storage systems etc) but it shows the effect.

One of my developers, created a wiki (from scratch) with client side preview i.e. the changes you were making to the wiki could be seen as you were making the changes.

The total time for design, coding and release to the internet was around about 30 minutes. To have put the system together from scratch (including hosting, installing all the components, framework elements etc) would have taken several days.

Another example is that we built a carbon calculator for ETech conference in 2007 which used Zimki and mashed up data from Google maps and Carbon offset information. This application enabled the attendees to graphically add their home address and the system would calculate the total carbon cost of the conference. Time for design, development and release was about 40 minutes. Again, if you were building everything from scratch, you could be talking at least a couple of days to get things up and running. If you were building the mapping components, it would be weeks.

As a novice to JavaScript, I built a service in 2006 which examined digg / flickr / technorati for recent posts on specific words associated with moods. It provided a graphical display of the internet mood and how that mood was changing. Total time to design, develop and release to the internet - about half a day, and that was for a novice. By traditional means, setting up hosting, installing databases, frameworks, getting it all to work etc - weeks.

Even in the early stages of the Zimki environment, it was possible to increase the speed of development by an order or so of magnitude.

With componentisation and common libraries of standard services you could be talking several orders of magnitude particularly when talking about larger systems which will contain many components.

Hope that helps.

Nice post Simon. Interesting how the trasnition to...

2008-12-09T13:23:00.000Z

Nice post Simon. Interesting how the trasnition to components hosted in the cloud therefore effects the sales pitch for adoption in an enterprise; rather than to the infrastructure teams, the potential "to do things that you couldnt before" is in reducing the cost of bespoke application development which is ommonly a different part of the organisation.

Are you aware of any comparisons of time-to-market or costs between developing bespoke versus developing using cloud services? Would add fuel the fire.

Comments on Bits or pieces?: Why the cloud is unavoidable.

Back in 2006, the company I ran created a utility ...

Nice post Simon. Interesting how the trasnition to...