Programming And Cloud Computing?

We've been promised all kinds of benefits from cloud computing: faster development, cheaper applications. All this is wonderful news for the CIO, but could it be that the cloud is anything but good news for the humble technophile?

Certainly those IT workers who spend their time taking care of rickety, homegrown enterprise applications will find their jobs automated when the business moves to cloud applications instead. But as the cloud matures over the next few years, it could have a huge impact on technology workers. The cloud could really kill the programming altogether?

In this world of cloud computing all particular elements necessary for the construction of an application will already exists on the web somewhere, so all that will be necessary is for someone to connect up this series of prefabricated modules and APIs in order to create a new application.

According to this scenario, no coding knowledge will be needed anymore, or at least not at the same level as it is today. People do not understand what cloud computing is basically going to wind up. We arent going to write more programs, we will find something and set it up. No more programming - that's the possible way how the future of IT is going to be.

If this does happen, we will not need programmers because, we will all be developers, able create applications from some Lego-like code that we find on the internet.

In the same way the Web has changed from being a read-only experience to be something that we can also write, edit and contribute to, thanks to the development of what we call Web 2.0, so let's stop being passive consumers of applications and start being the end-user programmers.

The seeds of this phenomenon have already been sown. Even today, the development of application is often the about configuration, rather than actually do any hardcore coding.

There is a second unintended consequence of the cloud - that if we are all programmers now, then the idea of a company having a user interface for its customers to access its services through is no longer a meaningful idea.

If, for example, I take the data from my airline and have it automatically entered into a custom application that will coordinate information on my flight, my preferences for accommodation, details of all my meetings and plans transport, and then throw in a few dinner suggestions, I am not likely to care about this site or the airline app like in the first place - I just want a stream of data can I use in my own way, not an interface that makes me interact with a service in a manner not of my choice.

I'm not entirely sure all elements are in place to allow non-technical users build their own applications software equivalent of Lego at the moment, and I'm not entirely sure many workers are willing to try, either. However, it is entirely possible that in a few years it could become the norm.

Eugene Coscodan is a SEO Strategist working at Reliable Networks - it support London company. He is interested in Internet marketing, Internet technology, web development, and computer security. If you'd like to connect with him, contact Reliable Networks.