Strange, isn’t it. One day you talk about sharing your data as the next ‘big thing’. The next day you come across a pretty mature web-based app that does it already and pretty much blows your mind away. I’m referring to Dabble DB, which allows you to set up pretty simple database apps in a Web 2.0 environment, and does it very well indeed.
A couple of thoughts occurred to me whilst watching the very impressive demo:
- Whilst Dabble is extremely slick, the basic principles of what it is doing are very familiar to anyone who’s developed in Notes/Domino over the last 10+ years. Shows how good Ray Ozzie’s concept really was.
- Web 2.0 is now bringing us many, many building blocks (databases, spreadsheets, etc.) in addition to a number of well-formed applications. However, a post by Joel Spolsky entitled Lego Programming is a very relevant reminder that the challenge with development is in the initial specification rather than the actual building of the thing. In other words, make sure you know exactly what you want before you dabble
