You’re right that you won’t be doing 3D modelling, photoshopping, etc. any time soon on the web. But that’s not what the ordinary consumer is doing anyway. He’s quite content with playing music, watching videos, facebook, twitter or other things. There’s a difference between what YOU are going to be doing and what HE (the consumer) is going to be doing.
The PC era is ending, and device era is beginning. Professionals will continue to use PC’s to create stuff, but consumers are moving away from the cumbersome interface and usage of PC’s. Consumers want simplicity, they want the stuff to work, they want it to be easy, accessible. A PC with Windows like we’ve known it doesn’t do that, and I’ve seen firsthand how complicated PC’s with Windows are for ordinary people who don’t use them a lot, the PC’s end up plagued with malware, dead slow with annoyware and the user simply gives up on it. My mom’s computer is just like that, and I’ve given up on it, I’m getting her an iPad.
If the ordinary consumer is not going to be buying a PC again, and the ordinary consumer makes up over 90% of those who buy PC’s, how is that going to affect computers makers and professionals like programmers and designers? For sure we need PC’s to make consumer “goods”, like games, web pages or other applications. I imagine mouse/keyboard operated computers to be strictly used by professionals in the future, while the consumer mass will be using devices.
You don’t realize it yet, but there’s already a big revolution underway. The computers of the first era were impractical, bulky and required engineers to operate them, then came the 1980’s with the PC era that allowed most people to use a computer in their home or office, although they weren’t accessible to all. Now the third era is beginning, where virtually all people can use computers in whatever manner they want with whatever devices they want, and it’s easy, for your mom, grandfather, and dog.
Big software giants are in a panic, attempting to repurpose themselves. You already see what Microsoft is doing, Oracle probably doesn’t know what it’s going to do because professionals are moving away from RDBMS databases as well. Dell, HP are in a big mess with sales plummeting. Big game makers aren’t releasing as many AAA games as before, and they’re scrambling to move into the devices market where the money seems to be.
If you think you’ll be writing Java code or C code in this new era you’re grossly mistaken. Most of the development for these consumer devices will be in scripting/interpreted languages. Web pages are what users use, it’s what is most accessible to all devices, if you don’t have the web accessible on your device then your device won’t sell. And all devices manufacturers try to make it easy for developers to make applications for their devices (that means javascript or intepreted languages), because they know LOTS of apps for their devices means LOTS of buyers for their devices.
Open your eyes before you become one of those old guys in the basement hellbent on maintaining some legacy system with a language that nobody else still uses.
You can do amazing things in HTML5, now. In a few years time perhaps we’ll see HTML6, and we can only imagine what sort of stuff will be in that. Java, C, simply doesn’t have a place in this envisioned future, but javascript does have a big role.
But as always, the future is only what we can dream it to be, extrapolated maybe on the past. What it will actually be like is unknown.
