Web services are the new files

Files have been the common element of computing since at least the 1960s. Files existed before disk drives and file systems, as one could put multiple files on a magnetic tape.

MS-DOS used files. Windows used files. OS/2 used files. (Even the p-System used files.)

Files were the unit of data storage. Applications read data from files and wrote data to files. Applications shared data through files. Word processor? Files. Spreadsheet? Files. Editor? Files. Compiler? Files.

The development of databases saw another channel for sharing data. Databases were (and still are) used in specialized applications. Relational databases are good for consistently structured data, and provide transactions to update multiple tables at once. Microsoft hosts its Team Foundation on top of its SQL Server. (Git, in contrast, uses files exclusively.)

Despite the advantages of databases, the main method for storing and sharing data remains files.

Until now. Or in a little while.

Cloud computing and web services are changing the picture. Web services are replacing files. Web services can store data and retrieve data, just as files. But web services are cloud residents; files are for local computing. Using URLs, one can think of a web service as a file with a rather funny name.

Web services are also dynamic. A file is a static collection of bytes: what you read is exactly was was written. A web service can provide a set of bytes that is constructed "on the fly".

Applications that use local computing -- desktop applications -- will continue to use files. Cloud applications will use web services.

Those web services will be, at some point, reading and writing files, or database entries, which will eventually be stored in files. Files will continue to exist, as the basement of data storage -- around, but visited by only a few people who have business there.

At the application layer, cloud applications and mobile applications will use web services. The web service will be the dominant method of storing, retrieving, and sharing data. It will become the dominant method because the cloud will become the dominant location for storing data. Local computing, long the leading form, will fall to the cloud.

The default location for data will be the cloud; new applications will store data in the cloud; everyone will think of the cloud. Local storage and local computing will be the oddball configuration. Legacy systems will use local storage; modern systems will use the cloud.