Web paradigm shift

I reconnected with a friend (Rick) from a past job this week and enjoyed reading some interesting musings on his blog.

I think he raises a good question: Is the web is reaching an inflection point, where a fundamentally new direction will appear? Intuitively, the Web 2.0 stuff sure feels like one flag flapping in the wind.

For example, take the evolution from text-based tools in the late '80s to today's browsers. How many people even remember Archie or Gopher anymore?

Testing Priorities for the new Web

In case it isn't already obvious, the future is Now. Web 2.0 is running in production at many sites; it's no longer sequestered just in research labs and academia.

Because of the increasing collaboration, social, and mash-up (uh, "syndication") features of Web 2.0, I think the following testing categories will gain in importance:

+ Performance (particularly scaling)
+ Security
+ Privacy

These categories will probably remain "about the same":

= Functionality
= Ease of Use
= Test automation

And finally, my intuition tells me that these categories will be "less emphasized":

- Cross-platform
- Multi-browser support
- Exhaustive test coverage