Every now and then, when the important discussions over video games, board games, TV, and movies comes to a close, my friends and I briefly chat about other life-pertinent issues such as our careers. During one such conversation, a  friend wondered the obligatory "What next?" question, more specifically, "If I want to change my career, I'm not certain what programming skills I should focus on."

Since my friend has a history of web development, I answered, "Continue working on your expertise in PHP and JavaScript. Web application development isn't going anywhere soon."

A pause. A pursed lip. "I'm not so certain about that, not with all of the mobile applications out there."

Others certainly agree with him: No more than a few weeks later, <a title="Wired Magazine" href="http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1"><em>Wired</em> magazine</a> wrote its infamous article about how the <a title="The Web is dead" href="http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1">Web is dead</a> and how mobile apps will dance on its grave.  <a title="Google - as if you don't know the URL" href="http://www.google.com">Google</a>, the <a title="Microsoft - As if you couldn't guess this URL" href="http://www.microsoft.com/">Microsoft</a> of the Interweb, has split its personality over the issue, investing in both the <a title="Android Marketplace" href="http://www.android.com/">Android Marketplace</a> and the <a title="Chrome Web Store" href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/">Chrome Web Store</a>. We all know where <a title="Apple (not Apple Computers)" href="http://www.apple.com/">Apple</a>, the Microsoft of mobile apps, seems to stand. To cement the point, Objective-C, the framework for implementing iPhone and iPad apps, jumped sky-high on the <a title="Tiobe Programming Community Index" href="http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html">Tiobe Programming Community Index</a> last month while PHP, the Web's most popular programming language, remained inert.

There is no doubt that the mobile computing wave has slammed onto the Internet's shores and that more waves are on their way. The<a title="New Media Consortium" href="http://www.nmc.org/"> New Media Consortium</a> has listed mobiles as "Technologies to Watch" in their <a title="Horizon Project" href="http://www.nmc.org/horizon">Horizon Reports</a> since at least 2009. <a title="Twitter" href="http://www.twitter.com/">Twitter</a> mobile usage has "<a title="Twitter Mobile Usage Skyrocketed With &quot;Official&quot; Apps" href="http://mashable.com/2010/09/02/twitter-mobile-official-apps/">skyrocketed</a>" since the company released their "official" apps. You can download mobile apps for Facebook and LinkedIn and most other social networking sites. According to <a title="The New Billion" href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CBIQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bcg.com%2Fdocuments%2Ffile58645.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=Boston%20Consulting%20Group%20Internet%27s%20next%20billion&amp;ei=7K2DTP6ZIYL58Aa34939AQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNHpJxkrlcNaJvdpQ_-8oZdn6uftxg&amp;sig2=ad9jSPdLbq2h2aYaE96Tuw&amp;cad=rja">an article</a> by the <a title="Boston Consulting Group" href="http://www.bgc.com/">Boston Consulting Group</a>, the next billion or so Internet users will be logging in via mobile devices. One billion. That's a lot, even in Internet terms.

As a person who resists change, I would like to ignore this trend, but I shouldn't ignore it and realistically, I can't.  Nevertheless, I don't believe I need to completely shift my focus from web applications to mobile apps--or, in programming parlance, divert my total attention from PHP to Objective-C. Web applications, I think, have their place and are here to stay. As mentioned before, Google hasn't given up  on the web application, and even Apple maintains the <a title="Safari Dev Center" href="http://developer.apple.com/safari/">Safari Dev Center</a>, which hosts an assortment of documentation on how to optimize web applications for iPads and iPhones.

The debate, then, is about whether one platform will squelch the other. Some folks believe mobile apps will trump web applications while <a title="Mobile App or Browser-Based Site?" href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mobile_app_or_browser-based_site.php">others believe the opposite</a>. The truth probably lies--as it invariably does--somewhere between the two extremes: There will be a market for both, and both will learn to coincide with the other application markets out there. You know, the ones that have been around for awhile, such as personal computers and video game consoles.