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Web vs Apps: The Big Picture

by Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer

As software engineers, we live in an age of decadence. Not only has the mobile revolution brought us amazing power, but also a consumer grade computing environment for all. As we go to build such solutions, we have found people quickly come to the big question: Web, or native app? In this course we will try to tear apart that question and get to the nuance that lies within.

What you'll learn

As software engineers, we live in an age of decadence. Not only has the mobile revolution brought us amazing power, but also a consumer grade computing environment for all. As we go to build such solutions, we have found people quickly come to the big question: Web, or native app? In this course we will try to tear apart that question and get to the nuance that lies within.We will use computing history to learn from past mistakes and triumphs. We will then look into the advantages and flaws of the technology behind the Web and native platforms. We quickly bisect the fact that there are two sides to the question: Using the Web as a delivery platform? Or, as an experience platform? At Walmart Labs we have gone through these challenges, so we use our own example to add to other case studies to give an overview of the problem and how you can hope to use the Web and native together more as peanut butter and jelly.

About the authors

Ben Galbraith, together with his long-time friend Dion Almaer, forms one-half of the dynamic "Ben and Dion" duo that founded Ajaxian.com, headed Developer Tools at Mozilla, ran Developer Relations at Palm and is now running mobile architecture and engineering at Walmart.com after being acquired along with their start-up team in early 2011. Ben's been writing code since he was six and starting businesses since he was ten; he's written books, given hundreds of award-winning presentations world-wid... more

Dion Almaer is a technologist who loves to code and build. He and his long time partner-in-crime Ben Galbraith (https://app.pluralsight.com/profile/author/ben-galbraith) recently brought their team to Walmart to power the mobile engineering efforts. He enjoys sharing his passion for software production across various communities, including a new property called FunctionSource.com. Dion has been writing Web applications since it took over from Gopher. He has been fortunate enough to speak around... more

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