Why Web Development Matters
Last March I signed up for Dev Bootcamp in New York City, hoping to round off my education with a deep dive into front end web-programming. My lack of hard-core programming expertise non-withstanding, from my experiences it has always seemed like web programming has had a chip on its shoulder compared to more fundamental CS topics. My CS friends in grad school often compared web-programming and its frameworks to the "fun" part of programming that only came after more rigorous and intellectually challenging back-end work. I might never know the truth in this matter, but I have come to appreciate and highly respect web-programming for its ubiquity and its increasing importance in both technology and business.
Blazing fast internet connection and a multitude of connecitivity devices has driven a real need for applications to be light, flexible, and powered by the web. This shouldn't come as a surprise either. Desktop software has seen competition for a while -- see a full breakdown. Even those that question the strength of SAAS compared to upcoming Big Data Applications underscore the "web" characteristics of most businesses moving forward. Microsoft's move of its legacy desktop product (Office) to the cloud is a recent example highlighting that web-applications are the future of how businesses will compete and operate over the web.