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Microsoft to Release AJAX Framework
An anonymous reader writes "News.com is announcing that Microsoft has announced plans to release a JavaScript client framework library for use with ASP.NET 2.0 that makes AJAX style browser clients easier to code. Developers who attend Microsoft's PDC conference in September have been promised an early release of the code."
No, what they do is relased it here. It's an XSL-T parser in JavaScript, really cool stuff.
>Linux is not user-friendly.
It _is_ user-friendly. It is not ignorant-friendly and idiot-friendly.
I'll take that bet. Scott Guthrie (project load on the Web Platform and Tools Team at Microsoft) has stated that Atlas client script will work on all modern browsers, and will not be restricted to any web server.
You can read more on his weblog.P
Lets remember that Microsoft created the XMLHTTP objects that AJAX is built on.
Ok, resume bashing.
Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
10.
You've not used ASP.NET have you? All of the generated HTML and Javascript is guaranteed to work in all major modern browsers. True, some of the cooler DHTML stuff only works in IE, but other browsers get less cool but still functional equivalents.
Or, you know, you could just mindlessly bash MS, it's your choice.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
While I agree that Microsoft's way leaves much to be desired (primarily because AJAX on IE requires that you leave your browser open to ActiveX insercurities), I'm afraid there isn't really a "correct" way to do it. Your way (testing for the native XMLHttpRequest object, and then falling back to the ActiveX object if necessary) is certainly the best way, however.
IIRC, Mozilla's XMLHttpRequest object was created to mimic the functionality of Microsoft's ActiveX version, and then Safari and Opera (to a certain extent) followed suit. However, the XMLHttpRequest has never been part of ECMAScript (the standard that Javascript is based on) nor the W3C DOM. It has always been an "extension" that Microsoft has foisted upon the world, much like the <marquee> tags and layers we love to hate.
As such, it is inconsistently supported -- particularly in Opera and Safari 1.3/2.0. There are also minor differences (e.g. the number of arguments that the send method accepts) that arise due to the lack of a standard specification.
Fortunately, because of its immense utility in creating modern web-apps, it has become a de-facto standard and thus rather reliable. I would love to eventually see browsers support a standards-based version of AJAX (something like the W3C Level 3 DOM Load and Save specification), but until then, there is no truly "correct" way to do it.
You've never used the XmlHttpRequest object, have you? There is one version of it for IE, which is an ActiveX object. There is another for every other browser. Once you get that object, they are almost completely functionally the same. But if Microsoft makes their library only use the ActiveX version, then it simply won't work on anything except IE/Win. And that's not the fault of any other browser.
By the way, there is no standard yet. XmlHttpRequest is a non-standard technology at the moment.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
there are a lot of them...
Sarissa - http://sarissa.sourceforge.net/doc/
Prototype - http://prototype.conio.net/
Dojo - http://dojotoolkit.org/
SAJAX - http://absinth.modernmethod.com/sajax/
DWR - http://www.getahead.ltd.uk/dwr/
JSON-RPC-Java - http://oss.metaparadigm.com/jsonrpc/