Looking in the Rear View Mirror
After taking a "then and now" look at our eTapestry web site and the history of the name, I thought maybe we should try the same exercise for eTapestry the application. There is nobody more perfect in the world than John Moore our CTO to provide such insight. Therefore, as I take a couple of vacation days later this week, I have handed the key to this blog post to Mr. Moore. I think you will enjoy his comments and a couple of the comparison screenshots even if he manages to let a couple of buzzwords slip in...
As eTapestry passed its ten year anniversary last month, it seemed like a great opportunity to take some time to reflect on where the product was ten years ago and where it is now.
As a true startup venture, the first versions of eTapestry were functionally lean and no frills, as the priority was getting the first web-based fundraising product to market in a short period of time.
The operating landscape for eTapestry had some interesting hurdles ten years ago. One of our key design principles was to keep the amount of data and graphics on application pages low since broadband had nowhere near the level of penetration it does now.
Page design had had an intrinsic "vanilla" feel in order to sidestep browser compatibility issues since Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer were engaged in the original "Browser Wars" and agreements on HTML and JavaScript standards were yet to be seen.
Client-side presentation tools and programming languages ten years ago were not mature enough to emulate the rich desktop application experience users were familiar with so the original eTapestry interface was functional but clunky.
Thanks to the SaaS model of software delivery, an active customer base, the resources of Blackbaud and a crackerjack software development team, eTapestry evolved rapidly both in terms of interface presentation sophistication and ease of use as the technical landscape changed.
The software development tools grew up; AJAX and Dynamic HTML led to the ability to create a much better user experience. Broadband became ubiquitous and client computers became faster so application pages could show richer content without sacrificing navigational speed.
While the future will undoubtedly bring new challenges with respect to delivering a web-based fundraising application, I have no doubt that the experiences of the last ten years and the ever-increasing power of technology will serve us well in shaping tomorrow's product.
Happy anniversary, eTapestry.
John Moore
Chief Technical Officer