UPDATED 07:42 EDT / JUNE 03 2013

Adobe’s Eric Elliot Discusses JavaScript Trends

Eric Elliot, an Adobe engineer and author of the book “Programming JavaScript Applications,” stopped by theCube at the O’Reilly Fluent Conference to share his take on JavaScript, cloud computing, and everything in between.

Elliot starts the interview by telling SiliconAngle’s John Furrier and Jeff Frick that JavaScript has an “interesting trajectory.” He reflects that the language has come a long way in the past couple of years thanks to a flood of innovations that drove the developer community to embrace it as a serious programming language.

He views WebGL and mobile as new frontiers for JavaScript. He’s also excited about the next generation developer tools, namely editors that can deliver deep insights into program flows and Chrome DevTools, which he calls “stunning” and “really amazing.”

After Elliot explains importance of RESTful APIs and shares a few details about the AngularJS data-binding framework with Furrier, the conversation jumps to the cloud. Frick asks Elliot about Adobe’s decision to relaunch its flagship Creative Suite in the cloud:

“I’ve been building web apps pretty much exclusively for several years now, and I’m really excited about software-as-a-service and subscription-based models,” he replies. “I think that when people start using the Creative Cloud tools and they start to get used to having all those cloud-enabled features, they’re gonna wonder how they ever got along without it. As we progress and mature the platform that’s gonna become more and more apparent.”

Elliot boasts that the cloud offers several advantages over traditional desktop apps. Subscription-based services are more affordable, he highlights, and they don’t require the user to purchase a new version of their tool every few years. Toward the end of the interview, he stresses the importance of quality assurance and predicts that JavaScript development will become smoother and more mobile-centric over time.

Check out the the video below for the full insights from the session, including Elliot’s take on the applicability of Agile for mobile developers.


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