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Ajax Is the Buzz of Silicon Valley
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Ajax, or 'Asynchronous JavaScript and XML,' is allowing webpages to update as quickly as desktop software, powering applications like Google Maps and attracting money from Silicon Valley investors, including for a collaboration-software company called Zimbra. The Wall Street Journal reports: 'Zimbra's chief executive, Satish Dhamaraj, says that when he started his company in December 2003, "I really thought that Ajax was just a bathroom cleaner." Now his San Mateo, Calif., business has amassed $16 million in funding from venture-capital firms including Accel Partners, Redpoint Ventures and Benchmark Capital, the firm that famously funded eBay Inc. Peter Fenton, an Accel partner, says Ajax "has the chance to change the face of how we look at Web applications" and could boost technology spending by corporations, because Ajax is also being used to develop software for big companies, not just for consumers.'"
No, Ajax is also an excuse for ad placement.
Shouldn't it be AJAX, not Ajax? Ajax is the Greek warrior.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I thought Ajax was near Toronto, not Silicon Valley.
what didnt we know about this already?
Giggidy Giggidy Gigg-a-dy
Web Two Point Oh
Get your AJAX-enabled startup right there!
This Like That - fun with words!
"Now his San Mateo, Calif., business has amassed $16 million in funding from venture-capital firms"
So throwing out the latest buzzwords works in getting VC money again?
it turned out to be more of a "burn".
It has been almost a week without an AJAX story on the frontpage, it almost became something only old people in Korea use.
Then AJAX will become obsolete.
:(
But then again, it may take a while
having my fire-belching Pentium peg out running a Javascript VM seems like a good use of resources.
For without them, javascript and XML would not exist!
Seriously you build upon the failures that DHTML, HTML, Javascript, XML, XMLHTTRequest and you form a system which requires at least a 1 ghz processor just run a very simple GUI.
There is nothing special about this other than the incredible amount of sheer dependencies that exist. You cross browser incompatibilities you have inexact everything. This is not a good solution people.
This is also a good example of how bad Java and Sun has failed. If Sun would've opened up Java, let people distribute it, as well as from day 1 enabled easy RMI over HTTP we wouldn't be up to our necks in a horrible mixture of presentation logic and business logic.
So here we are, requiring gargantuan browser which are brought to a halt with this AJAX technology when we had many other technologies which did so much better but failed for various other reasons.
JUST BECAUSE AJAX NOW FINALLY WORKS DOESN'T MEAN IT IS A GOOD SOLUTION.
I've been doing AJAX for three years... before that we called it "remote scripting."
This is nothing new. Calling AJAX "new" is like calling email "new", when it's over 25 years old... AJAX-like techniques being about eight years old.
I'd have written more cool "AJAX" interfaces if only my damn managers knew what in the hell I was talking about back then.
..or postit note.
t
http://gavin.panicus.org/downloads/javascript/pos
Postit Notes 2.0. I'm turning this into an AJAX ready application (mozilla only during testing)
I've found the elusive formula! VC's can send me an email to get contact information to send checks!!
1) Notes
2) Add the word "AJAX"
3) PROFIT!!!
"Progress comes from the intelligent use of experience."
OK, so I'll put 'AJAX', 'Ruby-on-Rails', and 'Web 2.0' in my business plan and I'm sure to win the jackpot!
Desktop.com had this stuff in 1999, but unfortunately the browsers of the day (IE4 and Netscape 4) weren't really capable of staying up long enough to make it worthwhile. There was even a company that had a nice little web-based spreahsheet app.
Still, I haven't seen a good, platform-independant, integrated sever- and client-side solution yet. Back at Desktop in was *all* client side except the actual persistence of objects so it wasn't really an issue.
Ah, well.
I thought Ajax was just a bathroom cleaner...
That is still correct. JavaScript and XMLHttpRequest make the wretched bathroom that is Web application development a tad more sanitary.
I read
Ajax has got to be the biggest buzzword of the year. Thank god nobody has figured out how to use Ajax to enable the community and synergize their collaborative efforts towards successification.
hello dear sirs my name is jamesh i are india (bihar) can u guide me install red had linux 9?
I'm watching the flash-based Zimbra demo right now, and they're bragging about innovations like "conversation view" and "tags" on messages. Which gmail has had for a long time. Yes, I know gmail is essentialy AJAX, but this is the demo for the Zimbra collaboration suite.
Why would anyone think Zimbra was innovative based on this demo?
This statement is solely an opinion. Kindly take it as such in all cases.
Well of course, the AJAX buzzword was made up in 2005. Back in 2003, everybody called it remote scripting, DHTML or XMLHttpRequest.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
AJAX is just buzz. Yes, it's a great tool for making better use of the web. Yes, it's relatively simple. Yes, it's flashy.
But it's still just a tool - and it can be used for good (see any of 37signal's apps) or evil (sites that use AJAX for navigation and break the back/forwards buttons). It won't make a badly designed web app better - in fact, incorrectly used, it can make things worse.
The Web 2.0 is about more than just flashy technologies like AJAX: it's about open architectures, semantic code, separation of content, presentation, and now behavior, and better user experiences. AJAX can enable any of those, but it can also destroy any of those. In fact, it's probably made web designers lives harder: now designers need to be familiar with separating not only content from presentation, but behavior from content and presentation as well. That can be very tricky, and it's tempting just to slap on some onclick handlers to your links rather than using the DOM and separating behavior from content. Furthermore, it's very tempting to have AJAX-enabled sites to that don't gracefully degrade in browsers without JavaScript - which defeats the point of the accessible web.
AJAX is a great technique, but it's not a panacea, and it's not a replacement for sound design and UI architecture.
All the hype seems to be around slick consumer apps, but as an employee at a law firm that just switched over to a third-party web-based app for handling all case documents and communications, I would dance for joy if the interface were updated to use Ajax. 10% of the time I spend using the system is lost waiting for a response to my clicks as I navigate around in the system. Everything goes through https, which is a good thing, but only makes the response time slower. Each pause is just long enough to contemplate how long it's been since I checked /.
;)
Yeah Google maps is great, but as more and more companies move to 'web-based solutions', the use of ajax could have really improve productivity. I mean isn't that why Microsoft created it in the first place
Slashdot should know better than to post a pure fluff article. This is nothing more than an advertisement. If we're going to masquerade this as news content, as least include how much slashdot got as a kickback. ;)
This is, of course, a prerequisite for successful software that you don't own but get from someone's server. Let's see now, who might be thinking about that? Bill somebody, wasn't it?
Shame the (bloody stupid) term "AJAX" wasn't coined until February 18, 2005.
Please also see AJAX = Fraud.
Whoa.. venture-capital firms investing in web related stuff? Have we fallen into a worm hole and are back in 1999/2000? I need to get myself some of that dotcom stock and sell it right after.
Joking aside, isn't it interesting/sad that it takes a lot of hype backed up by a big name like Google for a old technology tricks to get serious attention from investors? "They are doing it, so it must be good" type of reasoning. Hopefully this bubble won't burst into flames because hype aside, doing what ajax does has been pretty useful and it would be a shame for 'ajax' to be associated with failure.
[alk]
I've been using the Zimbra's Hosted demo. It's pretty cool that the whole page doesn't update. But I didn't notice any (appreciable) increase in speed over a standard web based email client. Is AJAX really something to make the developer's life easier and subsequently more productive and not necessarily for faster online applications? Or am I missing something here?
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
"allowing webpages to update as quickly as desktop software, powering applications like Google Maps"
Not quite as fast as desktop software, unless that desktop software is the latest Microsoft bloat.
Google Maps, while responsive for a web page, is not quite as fast as this story implies.
This horse hasn't even been born yet and it's already been beaten to death.
Ajax, or 'Asynchronous JavaScript and XML,' is allowing webpages to update as quickly as desktop software
Wow, and with the XML you can make it automatically talk to any system!!!!
e-Business has reached a new plateau! Synergy abounds! Am I e-dreaming or what! Woohoo!!
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
Though I'm reading /. I should be working on my AJAX app for medical billing. AJAX allows us to send the structure of a complex billing system to the client, then update the data at the speed of clientside Javascript. Even allows us to pull scanned medical images ina fraction of the time it used to take because we are only loading the image selected, not all the thumbnails and other wrapper data.
But I don't get why Google Maps gets the credit for this. Microsoft (yuck!) developed this concept for web based Outlook years ago, and it has been implemented by many smaller developers since then.
Perhaps all this press will get Javascript behaving between browsers and platforms. That is the worst part of AJAX coding!!!
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
This will be a case study in IP law. How many patents will appear covering each and every aspect of Ajax as developers reinvent techniques long since commonplace in pre-web software? I'm usually not pessimistic but given recent evidence (Blackberry, Eolas, etc) it's pretty clear that patenting trivial techniques, regardless of prior art, is effective.
How will a new platform emerge when its components are owned by multiple licensors? The answer is obvious; Microsoft (or Google, Canopy, etc) will buy them all and own the whole enchilada. Don't count on any Open Source implementations escaping the IP lawyers this time around.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
Soon to be met by stiff competition from
Content Oriented Markup Elements: Traditional
and
Server Oriented Funneling Transmission
Streaming Concurrent Rational Units Bidirectionally
"Not all who wander are lost" -- JRR Tolkien
Well done that man! I thought the term "AJAX" was bad enough but you had to go one better my using your joker: "synergize".
:)
You have a wonderful career in hell ahead of you
WELCOME to Zimbra-com. This is... Zimbra-com!
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
If we split OpenOffice along its presentation/processing tiers, turning those APIs into XML/HTTP, we can have pools of OpenOffice servers accessed by AJAX clients. Let's see MS WebOffice compete with that.
--
make install -not war
This shows you the power of a website and a buzzword. I think xmlHttpRequest has been around as an ActiveX object since IE 5. More recently Mozilla added native support. Hopefully the IE7 team has done the same thing. At any rate I've been using this technique for 5 or 6 years. When I first learned about it I thought WOW, this is really going to revolutionize the web! A web page can be a little client/server app, just sitting there handling requests all day. No need for any crapola to maintain session state between refreshes. I always wondered why Microsoft never did anything to promote it. ASP.Net seemed to ignore the concept entirely, instead encouraging page refreshes whenever anything happened. Now its being promoted with a catchy name and it takes off like a rocket. Go figure.
XmlHttpRequest by itself is really easy to use. You submit a request asynchronously using the Send method, and you write an OnReadyStateChanged event handler which watches for readyState "Complete" and does whatever you want with the returned data, which can be either XML or just plain text. For example, plop it into the InnerHTML of a DIV, or in IE you can do a client-side XSL transformation. The Ajax implementations I've seen are just javascript object wrappers for this. Sajax adds browser compatibility, which is nice if you are working on the web, but if you want to use this technique for typical corporate intranet apps where you know IE is the only browser, you really don't need to bother learning about Ajax. Just look up the XmlHttpRequest object and you'll see how simple it is.
I thought that investors had learned from the dot-bomb era. Yet here we go again, with another company with no product, no way of making money, with $16 million in venture capital. Wow.
I run a brick-and-mortar business that is profitable, growing, and even has actual physical assets, yet I can't raise a few hundred grand to open some new stores. I must be doing something terribly wrong if these guys can get money for an idea for a program that they'll give away once it's complete (or if it's ever completed).
It's a design pattern, it's not even a new design pattern.
If you're just figuring this out now, you haven't been around for long enough.
I'm a 2000 man.
Why would anyone think Zimbra was innovative based on this demo?
well... because they are VCs with money burning a hole in their pocket, that's why.
it's the way things are done here in the valley
It's nice to see that the "rest of the world" is finally seeing the importance of moving to decent web based user interfaces. However, the concept of AJAX has been around for quite some time. I was using a technology called "Remote Scripting" back in the late 90's that allowed you to hit server side pages via a "proxy" java applet, and then update your page however you wanted with javascript. Granted, it was pretty ugly code, but it made for a heck of a UI. No more annoying "flickering" on the web page, as the users used to call it.
.NET platform that Microsoft is making called "Atlas". It builds on AJAX but allows a developer to write ASP.NET server controls that render AJAX-ish code. At least that's the concept, I believe. Will be nice to see how it pans out.
I was quite displeased when ASP.NET came out and really put everything on the postback paradigm. They tried to cobble together something called "smart navigation" which was basically loading the page in a hidden frame and then updating the changes. What a waste! Instead, I was using the web service behavior. Downside is it only works with IE.
Now there is something on the
Having said all that, I'm glad that the rest of the world is catching up. Gmail was a big step in the right direction showing people the kind of functionality that AJAX can offer (though I don't think it's using ajax, I could be wrong though). Web apps are definitely "where it's at". I think we will begin to see the next evolution of web applications with this technology.
I believe that as soon as someone implements a concept like this, it will revolutionize the IT industry as we know it!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I don't get all the hype about Ajax; it's just the modern-day equivalent of cross-frame scripting, but obviously a little easier to do now with better facilities for error checking, but I was doing this stuff 4-5 years ago.
The editor made a mistake in posting this article. The title should read:
"Ajax Is the Buzzword of Silicon Valley."
Thanks.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Yet another stupid industry acronym for crappy cobbled together old technology. Wow lookie lookie, we can capture mouse movement events! and hey, we can download more jpg files and move shit around on the screen in those same events. Big freakin deal
I run a brick-and-mortar business that is profitable, growing, and even has actual physical assets, yet I can't raise a few hundred grand to open some new stores. I must be doing something terribly wrong if these guys can get money for an idea for a program that they'll give away once it's complete (or if it's ever completed).
In case you haven't heard of this book: The Portable MBA in Entrepreneurship
I think that book will help you with jumping through the hoops in getting money. In nutshell, have a written plan on how you'll use the money or better yet, a business plan and have plenty of evidence that opening those stores will generate the extra $$$ to pay off the loan. I'd advise staying away from VCs. They'll want an ROI of at least 40% a year and then they'll fuck you.
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
someone already has a patent on this form of technology?
Arash
Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
Microsoft Remediated Computer Language: Extensible Asynchronous Nullifier :)
Dear Web 2.0,
Hi, is there a free patch for my current Web 1.0 to upgrade it to 2.0, and will my Web 1.0 sites continue to work in Web 2.0?
Also, should I wait for the Web 2.1 patch before I make the switch? I usually avoid x.0 releases because I hear they're buggy.
Thanks for the info on Web 2.0.
Signed,
Victim of buzzwords
"Sufferin' succotash."
Good Luck!
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
Why all these cludges to make web pages appear like a terminal program? Why not just create a standard for Telnet/SSH clients displaying HTML? A link would be treated as a text string that would be sent to the host as a string... forms could be sent as a string of XML data... Build your SSH/Telnet client into the browser, and you are good to go!
AJAX is nice concept, but such a cludge!
Seriously you build upon the failures that DHTML, HTML, Javascript, XML, XMLHTTRequest and you form a system which requires at least a 1 ghz processor just run a very simple GUI.
AJAX-enabled applications like Google Maps and GMail run fine on my G3 iBook with Safari and OS X 10.4. I don't think they necessarily have to have additional processor requirements on the client side.
Saying DHTML, HTML, Javascript, XML, and XMLHTTRequest are all failures is a little extreme. Saying each fails at being everything is 100% correct and 200% redundant - nothing is everything. I applaud the use of XML and Javascript to place more processing on the client side. It's not without its problems, but then nothing is everything.
This is also a good example of how bad Java and Sun has failed. If Sun would've opened up Java, let people distribute it, as well as from day 1 enabled easy RMI over HTTP we wouldn't be up to our necks in a horrible mixture of presentation logic and business logic.
I agree with this - this was Sun's sweetspot about 10 years ago, wasn't it? Client's connecting to applications so our experience was built upon thin clients instead of desktop applications.
So here we are, requiring gargantuan browser which are brought to a halt with this AJAX technology when we had many other technologies which did so much better but failed for various other reasons.
Again - this is just not true, at least in my experience. If my 800 mhz iBook with OS 10.4 and Safari can run Gmail as fast as Mail.app then I'm sold on the usability of quality engineered AJAX-enabled applications.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
Sure AJAX might take longer to develop and debug but the only thing that matters is if the end user likes it. If the AJAX app can make their experience better for a particular site then in turn they spend more time and also refer more friends. On the back end there are other benefits such as lower bandwidth usage among many (at least in my case). Also your comment about needing a 1 Ghz processor is a bit our there. Sure I could write a GUI that could require a 2 Ghz processor but the name of the game is "lean and mean".
Seriously you build upon the failures that DHTML, HTML, Javascript, XML, XMLHTTRequest and you form a system which requires at least a 1 ghz processor just run a very simple GUI.
Ummmm.... I have a 1Ghz processor. Most people have 1Ghz processors. If most people couldn't run these GUI's they wouldn't exist because it would be worth the time to futz with them. The fact of the matter is that most people have way more processing power on their desks than they really need. Unless you do lots of video transcoding or game playing, a modern processor is total overkill.
In the end, applications are always designed to work with a target environment. If everybody has 1Ghz processors, it's really not worth the trouble to make it run on a lower end system. Furthermore, if you can enhance the overall ease of use of the system, etc, why not suck up a few more megahertz here and there? Obviously this has practical limits. Designing a web app that needed a 4Ghz processor to run would be assenine because nobody has them.
In the end though if it's complex, broken, and a resource hog then people just won't use it. But I think google maps prooved you can do some pretty cool stuff with it and so it's piqued people's interest in it. It's not going to be the solution for everything and sometimes it might not be worth the hassle, but it's one more tool in the toolbox.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
As counterintuitive as it may seem, this mania should be welcomed rather than loathed. Having most of the industry focused on these dead-end, mickey-mouse technologies actually opens up unique opportunities for those of us who have come up with more creative and elegant approaches for solving these types of problems.
AJAX Special Hazard Precautions
Anyone who tries to tell you that AJAX is a " new approach to web applications" is just rebranding old technology and hyping buzzwords, not engineering software in the real world. Because of browser and DHTML incompatibilities and limitiations, AJAX is like cocaine: it seems glamorous until you actually start using it, then the unintended consequences totally fuck you up.
Special Hazard Precautions for AJAX:
INGESTION: NAUSEA, VOMITING, AND DIARRHEA. EYES: EYE IRRITANT UPON DIRECT CONTACT. SKIN: MAY CAUSE SKIN IRRITATION UPON PROLONGED CONTACT. INHALATION: NONE UNDER NORMAL USE. PROLONGED INHALATION BY UNORTHODOX USE (NON-WETTED) OR ABUSE (SNIFFING) COULD PRODUCE LUNG DISEASE (SILICOSIS). N/K
Emergency/First Aid Proc: INGEST: IF EATEN/DRUNK--YOU MAY THROW UP. DRINK SIPS OF WATER/MILK. IF VOMIT CONTINUES, CALL POISON CTR/DR. EYES: IRRIT. FLUSH W/WATER 15 MIN. IF IRRIT PERSISTS, CALL POISON CTR/DR. SKIN: IRRIT. REMOVE WET CLOTHES. FLUSH W/WARM WATER 15 MIN. IF IRRIT PERSISTS, CALL DR/POISON CTR. INHAL: IF INHALED, MAY COUGH. TAKE SLOW DEEP BREATHS OF FRESH AIR, SIP WATER. IF COUGH PERSISTS, CALL DR/POISON CTR.
Here's the entire Ajax information sheet, with more warnings and hazard precautions.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
My complaint with Ajax is that it makes scripting the web much more difficult. I write scripts that grab content from the web and do things with it as well as scripts that post content to the web. I was trying to write one of these the other day for a site that used Ajax for the login form. If I still felt like it was worth writing, my script just became ten times more complex.
How do you link to content that is behind or otherwise encrusted with Ajax? How do crawlers find it? Without Ajax, you can look at the source of a page and get a good idea of what it's doing. With Ajax, you basically have to reverse engineer it (for an example, go look at the Gmail code).
The web should continue to stay one URL leads to one document which is a self-contained chunk of plain text containing everything you need to view its contents.
Ajax breaks the transparency and simplicity of the web for no good reason. It offers only increased responsiveness, which unless you are on a modem or something is minimal and mostly imagined by the user.
Hello, Zimbra? Yeah, 1999 called and it wants its hype back.
Okay, that wasn't funny, but this feels like someone just reversed the polarity on the main deflector dish and I got beamed back into the pre-dot bomb days. They've raised a bunch of VC money, they're buzzword compliant, they're going to "change the face" of something...come on.
Though they do seem to have a product, so perhaps I'm being too harsh.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Anyway, what I see is that AJAX will allow me to push all of the controller (MVC) logic onto the server. And I can hide script logic as needed (though can be done with jsp's or servlets/JSF). Aside from making remote scripting easier (i.e. don't need to rewrite functions), it will allow me to write code that looks more procedural and manageable than straight HTML. So it's another tool to add to the arsenal--hence the article sounds like more hype than new tech.
The weird thing is ESR thinks that more javascript than html-content is a train wreck waiting to happen. I would disagree here with something like AJAX in the mix.
Then again, AJAX is old tech and DHTML will likely have a greater impact.
anybody remember when VIRTUAL MALLS were the hot thing on the web? And three-dimensional VR web browsing?
that wasted a bunch of money too
I read the article first thing this morning in the WSJ (Yes, I actually pay for it) and realized it was a fluff piece.
But, what you don't understand, is that, for WSJ to put AJAX on the front-page (this wasn't hidden back in the tech-section), sas alot for what is going on.
-----
The real story here is as follows:
Okay, OKay, It's OKay to Use JavaScript
Java wants its hype back.
Look, I know some people are unhappy with the name Ajax. I understand that. I am not a huge fan of the word as used, myself.
But we need to get over it. That's the name we're using. There is no other word for it now. We can rant and rave all we want about how it should be called DHTML or DXHTML, or Dynamic Web Pages, or whatever. Truth be told, the word we use is almost entirely irrelevant so long as we are on the same page as everyone else.
In any case, we did need a need a new word. DHTML has been used for a long time, and describes such a huge variety of techniques that it's not terribly useful when we want to talk about the use of XMLHttpRequest usage and the recent movement towards more complex Javascript effects that abandon the dark-age IE5.5 and other early browsers.
Ajax is as good a word as any, and it's better that web developers have an identifiable term for that kind of tech, so that customers can refer to that general level of interactivity easily. Even if you don't use the exact "AJAX" model as described, when someone says "Ajax" we all know that we think about Prototype, Dojo, Google Maps and other apps along that vein.
Seriously, if you have enough spare energy to rant and rave about the terminology used in the web hype, then you need to find a better outlet for your energy.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
A bunch of comments that equal out to the following:
WHAA I'm a whiny fucking bitch that wants $16million, I was doing this 32789489 YEARS AGO IN THE FUCKING WOMB!!!!1111 WHAAAAAA
Poor stupid shitstain, looks like you lost out. Go cry about it softcock.
Slashdot sucks
aside from a few obvious practical usability difficulties ... I'm with you (the web needs simplified badly)
Required reading for internet skeptics
People here lambast Flash because it doesn't conform to the open source fundamentalist way of doing things (just like Apple, but Apple's exempt from the wrath of the /. hive mind) and a few other half-baked reasons. I respond with the advantages of it, i.e. it allows you to create cross-platform rich internet apps that don't require a whole page reloading every time the user interacts with it.
The standard /. response to that is usually along the lines of "oh, you can do all that in HTML with just a little bit of java and just a bit of javascript with just a bit of XML. Oh, and just a little use of iFrames too, then you've got it. Almost. See? It's every bit as easy!"
Moderators, if you're gonna hit me as a 'troll' just because I've expressed an opinion, maybe you shouldn't be involved in open source.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Lot of traffic coming our way because of this story. Just wanted to pipe in and say that the live demo on our Zimbra site is running our older 3.0 M1 release. Also, the live demo is heavily throttled. Last week we posted some screen shots from a server running (to be released soon) 3.0 M2:
d ar_candy.html
http://www.zimbra.com/blog/archives/2005/10/calen
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I'm tired of hearing about it. I'm tired of hearing about how:
a) It will revolutionize the internet.
b) Change desktop software as we know it.
c) *insert any combination of buzzword acronyms that = "save money" here*
In short, "Industry analysts" STFU!
-Randy
no one cares about what you care about
i'm being serious here: 99.9999% of web users don't really care if your screen scraper program is harder to write now
you are speaking from an idealistic point of view that doesn't really drive the web
the web is all about, and i mean all about as in the first issue and last issue under consideration, end user experience
everything else is trivial
i'm not in any way joking or trying to be flippant
if web users go "cool, you can drag the google map around, that's so much easier to use than mapquest" then every single thing you just said goes right out the window
end users rule with an iron fist for all development efforts, period, end of story
never forget that
realism trumps idealism
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is absolute bullshit. I'm a professional web developer and target a large range of computers and browsers. AJAX apps like Google Maps run just fine on things like the original 233 MHz iMac w/ Moz/1.0. I know Slashdot isn't the place for truth all the time but crap.
paraphrasing most every other other commentator below:
1. ajax the functionality has been around for 6 years or more
2. the buzzword "ajax" and the google maps implementation that skyrocketed the word to buzzword status has only been around for less than a year
i'm usually not one to champion geek snobbery. but when geek snobbery is pitted against cattle herds of phbs spouting buzzwords with little understanding of the buzzword itself, geek snobbery is more appealing
folks: use ajax, it really is The Next Big Thing (tm). but let the real lesson be how technology can be neglected and then suddenly be thrust into the spotlight, simply because someone influential (google in this case) put their seal of approval on it
so, when you code, think like the google employee(s) who went with ajax the first time around: they did it because it was smart. don't code because there is a phb buzzword attached to the technology
friends don't let friends code with buzzwords, use the tool that makes sense for the job you have to do
don't run around showing everyone your red hammer and saying things like "everyone is using red hammers nowadays, it's such an improvement over the old blue hammers." you will deserve the snickers you get from the higher echelons of geek snobbery if you do that. likewise, you'd look just as foolish saying "everyone is using red hammers nowadays, and red hammers are the answer to everything, so i think i'll replace this old saw with my new red hammer and saw wood with it" uh... no. but that's what some of this hype about ajaz winds up sounding like if you think about it
hammers hit nails, the color of the hammer doesn't matter, and a hammer can't saw wood. sound obvious?
well: ajax codes web apps, the buzzword doesn't matter... you finish the rest of the allegory
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I just skimmed through most of the irate postings to this thread and can't help but shake my head... seriously, I'm not being facitious. When are geeks going to learn that it is 'hype' that is partly responsible for a healthy chunk of a company's profit margins. Hype is also what drove the dotcom gold rush, but the reasons for the final bursting of the bubble in 2000/2001 are a lot more complicated (read some of Paul Graham's musings on the subject matter) and should not be simply attributed to 'irrational exuberance.' ;-) - no wonder we're all getting outsourced, we're simply too clever for our own good! I personally prefer to lose a few IQ points for a mansion on a lake, a bitch red Ferrari, and some more digits in my bank account...
The same people lamenting about this 'undeserved' hype are the first ones complaining that we're all being outsourced and that it's almost impossible to raise funding for an IT startup these days. So, here's a company that somehow coaxed a VC out of $16 Million (which in turn will create jobs for people like YOU!) and you're bitching and moaning acrimoniously about how you guys did that 4 years ago. If you are really sooooo smart, then go out there and grab a piece of the action! VCs are sitting on huge portfolio funds right now and have no clue what to do with them (well, almost
I think it's funny there's so many people here upset at the attention AJAX has been getting. I have to assume these are traditional Java (not Jscript) programmers who are once again upset that other technology has upstaged the hype that Java carried around with it that never materialized.
However, unlike Java, AJAX has immediate and obvious value to net-based applications. Java never had a niche where it could show off what it was uniquely good at. So unlike the Java hype, AJAX really does something better than what's widely available (aside from maybe Flash). One look at Google Maps and you can clearly see this is some new technology that adds value. Java really never did that, and I'm sure I'll get modded down by Java-phants that really don't like to be reminded of this. But this hype has more substance than the Java hype ever had. Relatively speaking IMO of course. Hype is hype anyway.
AJAX is simply a method for Javascript to make HTTP requests and receive the response. Sure, its cool and will make SOME web applications better. But I've already seen some examples of AJAX that could have been written just as nicely without it.
It's just another technology that can be used well or badly and really doesn't deserve all the hype. Most web developers who know how to program can probably figure out how to use it in less than an hour, but most product managers will probably need a few days to figure out how they can or cannot use it for their websites. It will probably be a small chapter in the next edition of Javascript: The Definite Guide.
Ooh! the web is getting better! No shit, simple progress, nothing worth buying stock in. But good luck to all those WML, Web 2.0, buzzword investors out there. I hope it's not my money you're throwing away.
Of course every Dutchman (and most european non-geek males) know, that the Amsterdam football (as in soccer) club is the only noteworthy entity called Ajax.
http://english.ajax.nl/
On se Internetz nobody noes your German.
does each call to XmlHttpRequest result in only a single call to an OnReadyStateChanged event handler? Or can it receive many such event handler notifications for each XmlHttpRequest call? I think it's synchronous like RPC - or is this incorrect?
Just a thought: automated webpage translation services like Babelfish and Google's language tools can translate arbitrary webpages yet preserve images and navigation. This only works because the web works via hyperlinked text documents. But if you want to read a website that uses AJAX for navigation, these systems will break -- they can't intercept your XmlHTTPRequests. And even if there was a browser extension that could do that, it would be unclear what text needed to be translated and when. So here's one example of a useful tool that depends on HTML transparency, broken by more programmatic clientside techniques.
-Brendan
I wonder if Jesse James Garrett, the person who coined the term AJAX, is surprised how fast and widespread the adoption of the term and it's effects have been.
Why does everyone consistantly bash any new ideas that show up on the web? Yes, I'm aware that AJAX and the technology behind it aren't exactly new, but it has recently been highlighted in the media and is getting more exposure than ever which is as good as being new. Why is it a bad thing that I can browse a map of the world without having to post to a web server every time I click? Why is it a bad thing that my Outlook web client can alert me when I have a new message?
It's particularly frustrating to see people dissing new ideas on the web. Sure, there are cross-browser issues, but there will ALWAYS be cross-browser issues as long as there are browsers that adhere to different standards (or no standards at all - MS I'm looking at you). Sure, there is a significant amount of hacking/cludging involved in web programming, but I defy anyone to find me any kind of web code beyond 'Hello World' that isn't a hack! As long as the web relies on HTTP, pretty much any web application is going to be full of hacks just to get it to work the way users want it to work. Deal with it.
So now I'm using A Caching XmlHttpRequest Wrapper with something that can be easily done in javascript: Splitting a string into an array. In my callback, I use something like
I've just picked-up javascript so if I'm doing something wrong, please tell me while I'm still learning!bundaegi is good for you
STOP POSTING ABOUT AJAX! STOP IT! BAD! BAD BAD!
Caps filter is great for keeping caps out of things.
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
A key enabler of AJAX is XMLHttpRequest (Apple Dev Connection , JJ Garrett's previously mentioned article). MS was an early implementor of this feature, in MSIE 5.0 back in 2000 (see this MSDN article). It seems that the capability lay in wait for years. Only recently has this synergistic combination of technologies truely come into focus. It's looking like AJAX and broadband could threaten the MS hegemony - we no longer need a local install of MS-Office, at 600+ Mb and $250+. A web server-based implementation may work just as well, a lot cheaper, a little slower, and without the problems inherent with installing software on Windows. note to intolerant moderators: I'm not bashing MS - Windows (the OS) works fine for me, I just wish I could say the same for the software I install and use under Windows. Would I be surprised if MS choose to cripple, subvert, or remove XMLHttpRequest? No. But I do expect them to FUD the landscape, and introduce a proprietary .NET "alternative".
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Exactly! Counldn't have said it better myself. As someone who works with network protocols a lot HTTP is a BAD protocol. It was fine back in 1993 when we had simple static pages with some text a few links. But for real applications with tables and list controls the stateless model is horrible. We need a cross platform application that provides sophisticated UIs that can be represented using a simple definition language but can hold state and only need to communicate with the server when the UI needs to load or store that state. I was hoping Java would effectively do this but it's UI is pathetically simple (AWT) or pathetically slow (Swing), it doesn't have very good control over the document and just getting the plugin to run in all browsers is a crap shoot.
Ajax Security
First of all HTML, JavaScript and XML are not failures. They may not be ideal for whatever it is you think they should be doing, but as technologies they are incredibly successful. Secondly, AJAX requiring a 1 ghz processor is complete bullshit. I use google maps on my 400mhz G4 all the time, and I'll tell you that the operating system slowness itself is more of a source of frustration than javascript.
Oh wait, except if you use a decent toolkit you can write AJAX apps that work in 99.99% of new computers running any operating system, right out of the box. Shit, I guess we better go write some Java Applets or DirectX because AJAX is so horrible.
Okay, that's just outta left field. There's a huge market in between monolithic business applications and pure content documents. Using something like Java to do lightweight web development might satisfy your pedantic idea of proper coding practices, but it wouldn't make anybody more productive. Not to mention assuming that a specific language would somehow make people better software engineers.
Oh boohoo! You didn't perchance work on one of these superior technologies did you?
Well it makes it a good solution if you want to:
Unfortunately it doesn't do anything to:
If I understand this right, AJAX, or its misuse, can make the back-button on the browser pretty damn useless...?
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Actually Zimbra does has a web front end that has some similarities to gmail, but it is also a solution I can run off my linux server without all the headaches of other POSIX system MTAs, with, yes, a nice interface with fantastic detailed search capabilities - that you can save for future searches. Some nice integration with the calendar component, using open standards, being opensource ...
And it is currently only a beta release, but with a strong community being built around it.
To me, it seems to be a core group of quality developers (of the likes of Andy Clark who was one of the core architects/contributors to the famed Apache Xerces2) with a community of techs being formed around them who realise what value this group is really bringing to the table.
Oh, and it seems to run on my p3 700 FC3 server with 768mb of RAM without any problems - technology that is a good 7 years old now. It took 2-3 hours to set up from a clean box. And the server is running a bunch of other services as well. Don't knock it before you try it. I really think Zimbra is filling a needed gap in the POSIX world for a quality open source complete easy to install/setup/administer email solution.
The only reason XMLHttpRequest is noteworthy is because the idiots behind Javascript never added the functionality of SOCKETS. Yes, exposing standard sockets, used by the web browser, would have started this ball rolling long, long ago. By now we'd have plenty of stuff wrapped around it, like a JS urllib.
Of course there's another way to do it: asynchronous JS based on timeouts, which loads stuff in hidden frames by changing the URL, and then checking for that frame to finish loading. Pretty much the same deal except you need 1 frame per simultaneous request.
That stole the words from my mouth. Thank you thank you thank you.
>What about web browsers without javascript ...AJAX doesn't work very well for them, does it? Kind of moot. Ever tried visiting google maps with javascript off? You get a "Your browser is not supported" message.
>And don't give me that java "platform independent" nonsense.
What can I say? The live server software was running on Unix boxes; meanwhile half of us developed from PCs. The server software we had worked on both platforms.
I think most of the complaints about java not being truly platform independent are GUI related. That doesn't apply to server software.
Here's an interesting example of using AJAX to control a desktop app. Works great and seems to be the most portable, user-friendly technology available to get the job done. The fact the the client can use a browser without installing any sort of extraneous client software is worth something in usability. http://classic.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=1 46128
DHTML has been around for a good long while now. But most mainstream sites haven't been using it because older browsers support for it was too varied and inconsistent to make developing cross platform DHTML viable. And they didn't have access to AJAX (which is newer then DHTML and only just became supported by the default Mac OS X browser when Apple released Safari).
What is new, is that big sites like Google and Yahoo! are willing to stop supporting older browsers. And when two big sites like that stop supporting older browsers, it allows everyone else to start ignoring them as well.
DHTML is nice, but without the AJAX part of the equation, you don't get the 'desktop app' feel that everyone wants.
Two Minus Three Equals Negative Fun -Troy McClure
You think people who get a "Your browser is not supported" message will agree with you that this is "great browser-independent javascript"?
Obviously you cannot say much about Java incompatibilities either, because all you know about "servers" is unix.
For every javascript there is a script-kiddie.
XMLHTTPRequest is not an open standard, but a de-facto standard based on proprietory Microsoft technology introduced in IE 5 many years ago. source
I don't get it. Are you arguing that the best AJAX solution is one that works even when javascript is disabled? You do realize that the J in AJAX stands for Javascript, don't you?
Wow. It must be time to start job hopping again to get raises. How absolutely stupid.
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
Maybe you really do not get it. Let me put it into simple words for you. Javascript is SHIT. AJAX and all that crap is NOT "great browser-independent javascript".
And why do you keep posting everything twice? If you have trouble with HTML, then you should better stay away from Javascript. Got it?
Many of the Java applets I've come across simply either won't load at all, or slow down the browser's loading of the page by five seconds or more while the little Java icon in my system tray loads and pops up with its "welcome to Java" callout. This is on a 3.06 GHz laptop with 512 MB RAM.
Flash won because it did what most people wanted to do (animation and games) faster and more efficiently than Java applets.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I really don't think I want to run a "Web Application" that needs the equivalent of 100% on a 1 GHz CPU just to display a GUI. I think that is the reason why Java failed on the Desktop. Perhaps those pushing AJAX might learn a bit by looking at history.
Linux is not Windows
Actually while I agree that HTTP is not the best protocol anyone could imagine it is several orders of magnitude better than some RPC (or RMI for those of you knowing nothing but Java) protocol exchanging actual function calls in a much less language-agnostic way. Implementing a basic HTTP client is a trivial task of a few hours in any modern programming language. This is the most important feature of the protocol one could imagine.
Linux is not Windows
Okay... I have to pipe up. This AJAX stuff is really cool. Neat even. However, it requires TOO MUCH KNOWLEDGE of TOO MANY TECHNOLOGIES to use effectively in the business world. It's going to create a lot of code that is simply not maintainable... I know all you geeky developers (myself included) love to do the new whizbang stuff -- but seriously, we really need to consider ease of use in writing code. It seems to me we're going backwards instead of forwards.
Several posts have pointed out the flaws in HTML and HTTP... and I have to agree. It's an old tech. I don't think it's easy to replace, but we really should focus on that. Where is the W3C on this matter? Why can't we focus on making HTTP/HTML a better system? Let's improve it. Let's get some standards together.... Sure we might have to break things to fix things, but that's the nature of the business.
Yes, you can create an API to abstract the complexity of this stuff -- but I what I really want to see is a common framework, useable by all that makes this stuff easy for the *average* developer. Not gurus.
You and I might be able to understand these technologies. But a lot of my peers (and students) cannot. This is a huge problem that we must solve.
I've been doing all my recent development in OpenLaszlo and honestly, I have never seen any UI technology that can compare. And I'm doing more than just playing with it, I'm developing a full blown enterprise app with it at work.
For those who are looking for really impressive web based UI technology, I can't recommend it enough.
Here are some of the strong points:
-open source
-tag/xml based language - very declarative, instead of tons of scripting, you can just define "states" of your views and bind those states to an attribute
-Object orientation that *really* works and is helpful - not like AS2 in flash
-"Serverless deployment" - this is one of the coolest things - your entire app can (optionally) compile to a single SWF that can be redistributed by your method of choice. I should point out that you can also run it in "server" mode where you can edit the
-Animation. Every attribute is animatable... via script or declarative animators. It is hard to describe just how cool this is until you see it in action - to make a view fade out, for example, I can just do this:either way gets you a nice fade out over 500ms. It couldn't be easier.
Anyway, sorry to drone on so long, but this is by far the most impressive UI tech I've seen. I know it has been mentioned on slashdot before, but I'm constantly surprised at how few people seem to know about it.
-Clay
Drinking habits can be dangerous. You can choke on the cloth and the nuns will wonder where their clothes are.
2-tiered model, with the worst possible protocol (insecure, verbose, spaghetti-prone: [n pages x m endpoints], the client calls are not type-checked and versionning the endpoints is a nightmare). It sounds wonderful.
there's no place like ~
The people who attack the usefulness of AJAX were probably the ones saying that HTTP served no useful purpose because we already had gopher. Get a sense of humor people, and catch on, we're talking about web applications not Mom and Pop's web site talking about their grandchildren. You don't index applications, you don't have a meaningful back button in applications, you aren't worried about browsers without javascript in applications. This is new, this is cool, this makes very specific tasks much much more bearable when working with web based applications. Stop ney-saying and try developing with it, you'll see how cool it is too.
Gee - it would be nice to see them shower some of that capital down on open-source DHTML projects like filedrawers. Sure, it doesn't use XMLHttpRequest, but there's some hot javascript DOM manipulation action, and it's a rather cool web based file manager.
- passion
Ok, Ajax is a bathroom cleaner and Vim is a detergent (in Europe). Can you beat that, Emacs? ;)
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
HTTP requests essentially are text strings sent via a socket similar to Telnet. That's the easy part. The hard part is interacting with a web client that historically carries very little state. By leveraging XMLHttpRequest, the DOM and dynamic server-side scripts, it's possible to make very widespread web clients a lot smarter and more interactive than they've ever been. That's the fun part.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Indeed the parent is correct. AJAX violates the principles of REST that the WWW is based upon. for this reason alone AJAX is doomed to failure.
I was there prior to the DotCom bust and saw the same hype. VCs were mad to buy something, anything that had the proper buzzwords.
Now they're back and so are the snake-oil salesmen who feed on them.
I'm sorry some VCs invested $16M in a technology that was in fairly common use 8 years ago, but shit happens. Maybe the VCs involved will learn a lesson and be more wary with their future investments, but I doubt it. It's a lot easier to sell hype than a real product.
Java failed on the desktop because:
1) You had two different browsers each with their own JVM plus a third JVM that you could download and they all behaved slightly inconsistently.
2) The Java applications were painfully slow
Now, go to google maps and tell me that it's slow. It doesn't matter what the software uses, it matters what you perceive. If you perceive waiting, sluggishness, etc, then it's a problem. This is common sense programming. You target a platform and you develop software that works well on that platform.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
"The *REAL* ajax will not be ajax, it will be either microsoft's xaml or w3c's "xforms" or whatever name it has."
It will be Curl.
I couldn't find an editable Ajax grid widget. Grids are a must for biz apps.
Table-ized A.I.
All you computer science students need to be aware the engineering for this startup is not in San Mateo. It's in Bangalore. The San Mateo office is for marketing.
As a side note, if "collabware" is the next big thing, why are "collabware" startups always managed by a single CEO instead of a collaboration?
Actually I didn't make my point very well. HTTP alone isn't the problem. It still sucks but it's the poor data management between HTTP and the rendered UI that is the just rediculous.
Think about what's happening in an AJAX application:
Text defining the display (HTML) is downloaded (HTTP) within which a script is embedded (JavaScript) that requests more data be returned as but in a slightly different form of text (XML) that needs to be unmarshalled and interpreted in an application specific way to extract document manipulation operations (DOM). That is *completely* and *utterly* rediculous.
There is a poll http://java.about.com/b/a/214466.htm on what Web framework Java developers are interested in moving to from Struts. The leader in the poll is Tapestry! Very interesting result. But, anyways, is anyone using Ajax with Tapestry and how well does Tapestry's component architecture meld with Ajax?
Java web applications are slow to load even on a fast machine over broadband.
I am a research chemist, a number commercial chemistry service online providers use Java 2D drawing applets as front ends to their databases and numerical engines. These apps though they work are slow and clunky.
Pubchem a chemical database provided by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) has developed a 2D web drawing tool that apparently uses AJAX techniques for its instantaneous update:
http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/edit/index.html
It far superior to any of the equivalent Java applets.
You and I might be able to understand these technologies. But a lot of my peers (and students) cannot. This is a huge problem that we must solve.
:)
Fuck that! Ajax has "job security" written all over it
What are peoples oppinions on AJAX vs Portlet development. Portal Server as immature, buggy, expensive and a real pain to develop for.
My current client has is implemeting a web app with web app style navigation and 1 portlet per page bcause the architects fucked it up, the UI people have no idea about portal projects and they wont change it now.
Ajax would have been a much better solution for my client as the only thing they are gaining is asynchronous updates to part of a page (the portlet)
Thoughts?
From the article (referring to Meebo, another AJAX company):
Several venture-capital firms have approached the three-person start-up, which is still figuring out its business model.
I think it's hard to find a better example of bubble: the founders themselves don't know how the business will make money, and VCs are already looking to invest.
Invest in what, exactly?
technology? How much technology can be in company founded 6 weeks ago (14th Sept)?
technology expertise? Last time I looked on Seek, technology expertise comes cheaper than a million-bucks-per-head.
Being the founder and main developer of a small software firm that has been around since 2000, and luckily escaped dubious VC deals (yes we did get offers), I can say that if you want to run a long-term viable business, you better have a clear idea on how to make it generate revenues, understand what your market is, etc.
Maybe the latest buzzword is good for luring investors with disposable money and no tech knowledge. But customers in the real world don't care about AJAX or other buzzwords. They want something that solves their problems, and how you solve them it's up to you. A profitable business (one whose founders have made up their mind on the business model, to start with) learns what customers need, delivers it, supports it. And you'll find out that if you play it right, the business will steadily grow. As we're experiencing.
Sure, on the other hand, if you're the founder and like to ride flashy BMW cars, and someone throws money at you, then take it while you can. But a viable business is another thing.
I wonder if VCs read Slashdot...
How about a technology that runs on Win, Mac and Linux, embedded in IE, Firefox, Opera or standalone, has a small footprint and uses vectors for rendering?
I've just described Flash.
I can actually feel the anger rising in you, dear reader. Take a deep breath. You're supposed to be a geek, you should like all cool gadgets and technologies.
Google uses Flash
Yahoo uses Flash
From experience, creating a web application is Flash versus "AJAX" is like creating a webside based on today's standards/CSS2 versus making it work in IE4 and NS4.
Flash may not be the ultimate technology, but right now it's what Java applets should have been.
I didn't know ANY javascript before 48 hours ago, right now I am writing ajax for production use. You dont need to use/understand XML to use ajax, and javascript is simple as fuck to use. I assume you already know html, so really, stop bitching, start reading.
http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX
Selling software wont make you money, selling a service will.
yabnaa
For all the hype about AJAX all the AJAX apps are all still kind of rubbish - they're not nearly fast enough, the ones I try out are all really flakey and they all look pretty grim.
Maybe there can be ad-free slashdot? You know , not where there are no banners or Marketplace Links text ads, but where the outright ads as stories are absent or at least put into 'Commercial Journalism' section? Getting on my tits.
Lone Gunmen crew.
I said it when MySpace got fux0red, and i'll say it again: AJAX is shithot ya'll!
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
..., surely this is not -news- to the Slashdot readers?
Rrrriiight, XMLHTTPRequest is soo much faster than HTTP Request for HTML/XML document. AJAX is so cool that is superconductive.
It works and it is far easier than you suggest. Also, the code is VERY VERY small compared to any other type of language. In my case 200KB for everything HTML,JS,PHP (goes into mysql). Compare that to our 28MB of vb src.
I'm just finishing deployment of a web based app that does some complex data rule enforcement and rating calculation server side, the gui is client side, the server handles logic and stores the application. By designing your apps the correct way, you minimize data transition, data changes up... only changes down (enforced by counters), leave the GUI code as exposed JS. My project is for private company with 600 agent groups, in 8 states, providing 5 different insurance applications. So realisitically 1800 daily users.
The code to provide the same functioning application with JS is a fraction of all other languages we have and do write apps in. JS contains the data -> through JS code logic -> updates the DOM. Yes it's almost that simple. For most business apps, it doesn't get much more difficult for any traditional data processing.
Plus, no more distribution, to 8 states.... no more making sure that the software they use is up to date, and has the latest fixes/corrections/rate adjustments. It's lightweight, fast, and centralized, not to mention, easy to code/maintain and the only tricky part is handling js client side bugs, but you keep that code very siple and well tested, and have it try to communicate with you if it gets errors that it is able to report, so you can fix them sooner rather than later.
Maybe Webadmin can use some Ajax?
Is it like the cleaner or the Dutch football team?
Well...
About 15 years ago I was working on a project in which the end users used "Green on Black" dumb terminals several of which connected to a small server (and I mean small, something like 4Mb memory) which itself connected to a mainframe back end.
So to save bandwidth the fixed parts of the applications "screens" were held on the server (any changes were downloaded every night) and whenever a message was received from the mainframe the data was merged into the screen image on the server before being served up to the client. And when the client response was sent back to the server it was first parsed so that only the content of changed fields were returned to the mainframe.
Most of this was acheived using a really crappy version of COBOL. And you kids today think this fancy "Ajax" thing of yours is anything special or the idea is in any way new .
Phtooey. Bloody kids'll discover Rock 'n' Roll next.....
You saying rediculous. I don't think it means what you think it does.
Nice thought, but when has the industry ever overhauled itself to improve old standards? You can't fix the problems in existing standards with a magic wand. The W3C are working on improving the specs, but incremental changes are all you can ever hope for. If the web was really that bad maybe there would be room for a new technology to swoop in and take over, but that's clearly not going to happen as long as websites are meeting people's perceived needs.
Not to mention I don't even see what's so bad about web development compared to other types of programming. I mean HTML and CSS are easier to use than any kind of GUI dev kit... I mean no IDEs, GUIs, compiling, or other programming stuff, just some text and image files are all you need.
... on how this company might make money ?
what a bunch of hype!!!
Laugh is you want, but the early adopters are going to be laughing all the way to the bank on this technology.
Remember how valuable 5 years of Java experience was back in 2000?
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
JUST BECAUSE AJAX NOW FINALLY WORKS DOESN'T MEAN IT IS A GOOD SOLUTION .. and just because you think you have a clue, it doesnt mean you actually do. So stop talking out your ass hat and do a bit of research and testing before you go making statements which are so totally stupid.
BTW...what does java going open source have anything to do with the quality or prevalence of AJAX?????
Like many of the Slashdot readers, I also hate the corny "buzz" and hype attached. However, the XMLHttpRequest method, like any good tool, can be wonderful if used properly. My company develops web applications and uses XMLHttpRequest rather heavily to avoid unnecessary page reloads for simple user actions (like select box changes, limited form input, buttons, etc). Thus, it actually requires FEWER resources, for the browser doesn't have to reconstruct the entire page.
Avoid "AJAX" libraries out there. Often, they are too bloated and obfuscate a really simple approach. All one needs to have a few javascript functions to test for a connection, transfer data by means of a POST query string, load the response data into memory upon success, have a timeout if connection fails, and perform some operation afterwards (change a table row, display data, etc.).
You don't need to use XML! I don't want to bother with parsing a format like XML. Instead, simply make a single PHP script that accepts actions and data from the "AJAX" POST and echoes back data in the form of javascript arrays or variables. Then, use javascript eval() to read it all into memory. Done!
Avoid using it to deliver content in end-user-oriented sites (news, articles) where search engines should see everything in pure HTML (separate content from function, whenever possible).
Perhaps the best thing about it is that it works reasonably well in Internet Explorer. Though we insist that some of our clients use Firefox, but many applications must support multiple browsers. The only browser-specific bit of code necessary is really the XMLHttpRequest object (in IE it is handled by ActiveX).
Finally, geeks start cleaning up their apartments?
sulli
RTFJ.
Where is the best place to find a comparison of the features/pros/cons of the two technologies