SOA, Mashups and the future (lecture 10 - the last one)

Written by: Jonathan Briggs

December 10, 2008 [3721 views]

This is the last session of the module and I want to look back over the last 10 weeks and forward to the future. This is a highly experimental module; a journey that most of you have followed all the way.

Most of you are now able (or close to being able) to:

1. Build a website using powerful content management software (Wordpress)
2. Buy and operate your own hosting server and domain names
3. Move files around inside your server and from outside
4. Manipulate links, images and links to video
5. Describe the interactions of your server and search engines
6. Use analytics software to explore who is visiting your site
7. Describe the importance of reputation and social networks
8. Think about ways in which web businesses make money
9. Experiment with mobile
10. Experiment with modern coding and design techniques including xHTML and CSS
11. Solve problems with others or on your own

I hope that what you have gained most is an idea about how tackle difficult topics and how to find out about things yourself. You’ll need to do that from now on.

Now, you need to learn to mash things up: big ideas in the future

1. Use other people’s code
2. Use other people’s data
3. Create prototypes
4. Create new interfaces
5. Create businesses
6. Integrate your applications into social networks
7. Integrate your ideas into software you imagine, design and build

Some sites to give you ideas

http://www.programmableweb.com/
http://www.mashable.com
http://www.dapper.net
http://www.xfruits.com
http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/
http://www.mashupfeed.com/

Web services and SOA

Data and data services becoming the cornerstone of the web (and of computing in general)
Many big sites now allow access without using the web interface via programmable web services

http://www.strikeiron.com/

• Look for Application Programmatic Interfaces and Web Services
• XML used to communicate between systems (like RSS but more general and more complex)
• A variety of different programming models: SOAP, XML-RPC and REST
• Allows interoperability between different systems
• Allows one system to build on the data provided by another
• Allows one company to focus on providing a service particularly well
• Can be accessed and programmed in any language (Java, Ruby, C#, PHP, Python)

Here are some examples

1. Set up your own store using Amazon or Google checkout facilities
2. Write your own auction management tools for eBay
3. Integrate mapping into your site or application
4. Integrate mobile messaging into your application
5. Manage scalable storage and streaming programmatically
6. Create new interfaces or search mechanisms to browse existing content
7. Build price comparison engines
8. Allow members of one network to share messaging with members of another

http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=3435361
http://developer.yahoo.com/
http://code.google.com/
http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/
http://developer.ebay.com/common/api/
http://www.kayak.com/labs/api/search/

Tips for the next few years

1. Keep blogging as a record of your growing knowledge and confidence
2. Use your blog to keep a portfolio of the work you do
3. Build small sites for familiy, friends and small businesses
4. Don’t work for free (unless you have to)
5. Keep throwing away what you have done and build better versions
6. Learn to programme/prototype even if you are not going to be a programmer
7. Learn enough xHTML & CSS & AJAX to be able to build mockups
8. Keep an eye on what is happening at the bleeding edge of the technology
9. Don’t just learn the theory, try out the practice
10. Recognise that you’ll learn more on your own than sitting in some lectures
11. Find people to learn with
12. Keep asking awkward questions until you get interesting answers
13. Set yourself unrealistically high goals
14. Make sure you are enjoying what you are doing

What do you think?

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