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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.
Except that MS invented the XMLHttpRequest object which makes AJAX possible.
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
If you ever saw the book called "A first look at ASP.NET 2.0", it had some demos of the new technologies that would be in ASP.NET 2.0. Once of them was an AJAX style client-side callback.
People act like AJAX is some magical new technology, when in reality, it's been used for years. Microsoft is just one of the companies who offered a "framework" to make it easier to develop. If they end up integrating it into their controls, it will be huge.
And for reference, I believe their demo worked in Firefox as well.
If anything, the AJAX popularity will just give them a little kick in the ass to move more quickly.
First, Amazon has nothing to do with Ajax. Their sites don't even take good advantage of it (except in a limited way, in the 'search inside the book' feature). Google yes (Gmail/Google Suggest), Amazon, no.
/. crowd would rather tear their teeth out than say IE 'innovated' or Microsoft led the way in any way.
> Microsoft is playing catch up.
And given that Microsoft created a very rich version of Outlook Web Access as far back as 1998, it's quite revealing that no one 'figured' out how to make DHTML work on a web app used by lots of people until Gmail came out. Actually, the reason for this is of course that Netscape/Mozilla didn't support it until recently-- although I'm sure the
If it helps you get over it, Adam Bosworth, who was on the IE team then and one of the creators of IE4's comprehensive, script-accessible DOM (which made 'DHTML' possible) now works at Google.
And regarding this toolkit-- it's interesting to see so many people reflexively bash it when Ajax today is a _bad_ mishmash of XML, javascript and HTML. RoR helps but RoR has its own set of problems-- chiefly maturity and applicability to a wide variety of projects. Ballmer got a lot of stick for dancing around shouting 'Developers! Developers! Developers!' but trust me that's how Microsoft earns its living: easy-to-use platforms + easy-to-use development tools.
Go somewhere random
Just look at it as distributed computing. The clients do the visual transformation so the server doesn't have to. The effects of this are two-fold:
First, reduced bandwidth. Not for you, though. Nobody (aside from you) cares how much bandwidth you have to use to view a single web page. People care how much bandwidth it takes to serve their own page thousands of times. Minimizing this figure saves money.
Second, server load. Again, thousands (or in some cases hundreds of thousands) of hits tends to put a strain on systems like this. If we offload visual transformations to the client, we save time on our server and our web pages are sent out faster.
Both of these result in reduced costs for website owners. It's what's going to make sure the internet stays as free as it can be.
Kumbaya.
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MS doesn't need to "support" other browsers. All MS needs to do is follow standards! Make their AJAX JavaScript standards compliant and no one could complain. If their AJAX is standards compliant JavaScript and it doesn't work with WebBrowser X, then it is the fault of WebBrowser X and not Microsoft's.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
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.