Random musings of a slightly feverish mind

Last weekend, I was sitting at home with the common cold. I'm sure you know that situation: too miserable to go out or do anything useful, but not miserable enough to stay in bed all day. Anyhow, I was aimlessly surfing the web, when I ran into the Brettspielewelt site. Try it out -- those guys do a lot of the things I'd like my JOGRE port to App Engine do eventually, and more. (PS: Don't worry about the language, the site is both English and German). Personally, I am hooked on Stone Age, but I am getting off topic.

Brettspielewelt allows the user to either run its client directly in the browser, or download and install a local version that connects to their site. The client itself is written in Java, which again reminded me of the JOGRE project. When I first posted about my attempts to do a port, I was asked why not doing an ajaxy client instead. My answer was mostly about not wanting to reinvent the wheel, but that gaming site got me thinking: is there really that hard differentiation, that choice between web and desktop development, that one has to make?

While I am completely in the cloud for most of my office-style apps now, I am still using my desktop for quite a few things that are not browser based -- and a lot of them nowdays have an online component. My Eclipse for programming runs locally, but my revision control is on hosted on code.google.com. I kill Zombies in Left 4 Dead on my local machine, but my scores and game licenses are managed by Steam, enabling me to install run the game from any machine in the world without having to carry install CDs or my savegames with me (not even to mention online play). It seems to me that many successful desktop apps nowadays have a hosted component that adds value for the end user, and (if done right) makes work much more profitable also for the desktop developers out there. Of course, if not entirely fine-tuned, such an online component may backfire and alienate some users more than it attracts.

Are these hybrid desktop apps like amphibians, a transitionary step from the desktop into the cloud? It's possible, considering HTML5, nativeclient, and some of the other great projects that are out there to make the web more powerful. I'm still sneezing too much and don't want to get my crystal ball all icky, so I'd appreciate your comments. Personally, I am not coding much for the Desktop any more -- is anyone out there who still does desktop software and is using App Engine in cool and interesting ways? Please add your examples as comments to this thread.