Thick Client Arch

The funny thing about not knowing something is... not knowing. Until a
few weeks ago I had no idea that a massive transformation was taking
place under my own feet. I knew that servers served and browsers
display. I didn't realize that so many developers using ASP.NET MVC and
Ruby on Rails relied on the server for everything except the container.
Ignorance is bliss eh?

See, to me it makes perfect sense to do as much as one possibly can on
the client. Knowing that the least amount of work one can do to get the
best results is the perfect amount of work. I have always set out to get
the maximum "bang-for-my-buck" as it were.

We are now seeing lots of posts titled: Should your web application be
rich-client from day
one?
and decoupling front
ends.
Great reads to be sure, but to me this is common wisdom. However, I
haven't been a developer for as long as many of these developers so I
don't have the experience or historical perspective.

I do feel that this is a prime time for indie-developers, like me, to
make a dent in the development world. If front end developers have
invested a little time to become proficient with JavaScript they will
have very little trouble transferring to the newer thick-client
architecture paradigm. In other words, a front end developer can now
realistically get a big project off the ground without a massive backend
effort in parallel.

Don't get me wrong, a masterfully crafted RESTful API is indeed a thing
of beauty and generally bomb-proof. However, getting a "working" web app
out the door without knowing the nuts and bolts of a massive server-side
framework is within closer reach than ever before. Exciting!!!!

I would be lying if I told you this wasn't exciting to me on a personal
and professional level. I have been really focused on mobile and web for
the last year and I hope some exciting opportunities extend from my
efforts.