E104: The Future Is Browser-Based with Drifting in Space
Sep 11, 2023
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Paul Butler, Founder of Drifting in Space, discusses browser-based tech, industrial company adoption, components of Drifting in Space platform, building applications on Plane, benefits/challenges of browser-based apps, marketing challenges, balancing product building and user feedback, and the future of browser-based apps.
Drifting in Space focuses on building browser-based applications infrastructure and tooling to bridge the gap between browser technology and the types of applications they want to build.
As browser-based computation becomes more capable, industries like industrial software are seeking browser-based alternatives to costly workstations.
Deep dives
The idea behind Drifting in Space
Paul, the co-founder of Drifting in Space, explains that the idea for the company came from his previous experience in finance, where he realized the need for browser-based tools to analyze large data sets interactively. However, existing browser infrastructure was lacking, as sending all data to the browser had limitations and server infrastructure was optimized for high throughput, low compute workloads. Seeing this trend in other industries as well, Paul was inspired to build browser-based applications infrastructure and tooling to bridge the gap between browser technology and the types of applications he wanted to build.
The core architectural principle of Drifting in Space
Drifting in Space follows the architectural principle called 'session back end.' This principle allows browser-based applications to start a server-side process remotely, creating a child process of the browser tab process. This approach is similar to how tools like Jupiter notebook or VS code's client-server setup work. Drifting in Space has a project called 'plane' that serves as an orchestrator for session back ends, allowing users to build on top of it. They also have a managed offering called 'Jam socket' that uses plane and offers serverless capabilities. Another project called 'Y suite' provides persistence and multiplayer capabilities, delivering a persistence layer built on top of the open-source CRDT YJS.
Applications built with Drifting in Space
Drifting in Space enables the development of various applications. For example, an app called 'rayon' is like Figma but for CAD, allowing users to open CAD files of hundreds of megabytes in size. Another use case is the development of applications like geospatial tools or IDEs dealing with large data sets. By leveraging the session back end infrastructure, these apps can run computationally intensive code or manipulate large amounts of data, achieving a desktop-like experience in the browser. The server-side compute provided by Drifting in Space becomes a complement to the client-side capabilities of modern applications, allowing for powerful and distributed systems.
Finding users and future growth
Drifting in Space focuses on building an audience and generating awareness through prolific content creation and engagement with the community. They utilize newsletters, frequent demo releases, and tutorials to attract developers interested in browser-based software. The company has observed the increasing acceptance and adoption of browser technology, particularly in industries like industrial software, where professionals are seeking browser-based alternatives to costly workstations. Drifting in Space believes that as browser-based computation becomes more capable through technologies like WebAssembly and WebGPU, more industries will recognize the benefits of browser-based applications and transition away from traditional desktop software.
Paul Butler is the Founder of Drifting in Space, the company focused on making browser-based applications accessible to everyone. They've created Jamsocket, a platform for building applications with session backends, and Plane, the open-source server that powers it.
In this episode, we dig into the future of browser-based tech and how industrial companies will be likely early adopters, the different components of the Drifting in Space platform & more!
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