Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Releases Atlas
Jason Lind writes "Much earlier than anticipated, Microsoft announced the release of Atlas this afternoon at MIX 06. For those who don't know, Atlas is Microsoft's AJAX API for ASP.NET 2, which they claim will greatly reduce the effort in developing AJAX style applications on their platform."
When do they release Thiluth, the Athyrian Thrangler?
If it's anything like the rest of ASP.net, It will require that you use Microsoft's wonderful web technology, with __viewstates, and other wonderful features. You won't be able to customize it nearly enough to do a professional job, and will only work for really quick and sloppy applications that don't really need AJAX anyway. I use ASP.Net on a daily basis. We've found the best thing to do is to ignore all the form/component stuff that microsoft has built, and just use tools we have built ourselves, which although they do many of the same features, are much more extensible and easier to use.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Are there good uses for Ajax? Sure. Google Maps is probably the single best example out there at the moment, and I would expect some more to show up soon.
BUT, will Ajax supplant the client app as the workhorse of productivity applications? Not a chance:
The funniest thing for me about Ajax is it basically is just doing what Java Applets can do, only Java is better. WTF?!?!
Free Conference Call -- No Spam, High Quality
Thats "wewease".
emt 377 emt 4
Easy Programming Model ASP.NET makes building real world Web applications dramatically easier. ASP.NET server controls enable an HTML-like style of declarative programming that lets you build great pages with far less code than with classic ASP or technologies like PHP or JSP. Best of all, ASP.NET pages work in all browsers - including Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Internet Explorer... from the official website. Sounds kinda cool.
I really dislike AJAX, for the following reasons:
1: Does anyone know of any significant javascript code which works on two different browsers without having to have conditionals based on the user agent?
2: Most AJAX applications break accessibility rules, which are law in many countries (including the UK, where I am).
3: AJAX provides another attack vector on websites. Look at the myspace worm. I know that comes down to bad programming, but still it's another chance to miss something.
4: A number of companies block javascript at the firewall - trust me, it's true. Imagine how well an AJAX site will work there!
5: Javascript is not available in all UA's (e.g. Lynx) - I firmly believe that no website should ever NEED javascript - in fact in my sites I avoid it all together.
I wish people would forget about stuff like this and concentrate on at least getting VALID html and CSS in their sites, preferably using at least semi recent standards like XHTML 1.0. Eh slashdot coders? I mean you!!!
In mythology, Atlas and the Titans revolted against the Olympians, lost, had his brothers betray him, and was punished to carry the world. Is this some sort of metaphor for the IE development cycle?
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
Last time I used it .NET gave 2 output options: Netscape 4.0 compatible HTML or IE-specific HTML. There was no full support for XHTML or HTML 4. That counts as working in all browsers. But the ASP.NET output I've investigated is far from the best.
Developers: We can use your help.
The key phrases here are 'claim' and 'their platform'. What about cross platform web applications I ask you?!
s t/2100-1032_3-5813897.html2 .aspx
"which they claim will greatly reduce the effort in developing AJAX style applications on their platform."
How about ACID2 complicance in IE7 or implementing the features developers are asking for:
http://annevankesteren.nl/2005/03/ie7-wishlist
http://news.com.com/Next+Explorer+to+fail+Acid+te
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/03/09/39136
But this is the March CTP for Atlas, not the final release.
Opera is still struggling, but Firefox compatibility seems to be a priority on their new Live services as well (btw, I like that finally someone is trying to move the search ui forward from last decade, even though it takes some getting used to..)
ASP.NET 2.0 has a lot more options, including XHTML.
It sounds kind of cool, But I don't think it will work out that way in practice. As it stands now, I remember hearing that even the old ASP.Net had issues with different browsers, and had problems with certain devices (handhelds) and viewstates where if the viewstate was too big then the application wouldn't work.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Actually, he was punished to carry the Heavens to keep them from shagging.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
The official website, just like Microsoft's regular website, is full of meaningless rhetoric. I can write complete crap HTML that works in every browser. That definitely doesn't make it good. And less code than "classic" ASP, PHP, or JSP? Not once when I worked with ASP.NET for 2 years did I find reduction of code compared to other options. Maybe there are some cases I didn't see, but a blanket statement like that is just wrong.
The only people who back up this rhetoric are Microsoft employees on their blogs and those who haven't tried any alternatives.
Developers: We can use your help.
All of those problems can be addressed by creating a good AJAX toolkit; a toolkit can fall back to plain HTML when Javascript isn't available, it can do the right per-browser customizations, etc.
...), but, again, with a good toolkit, you don't have to ever think about that.
However, from an interaction point of view, AJAX is enormously useful and a big advance over plain HTML pages. It's unfortunate that the underlying technologies are so ugly (Javascript, XML,
You do realize Microsoft pioneered what we today call AJAX, way back in the day with their Office product, right?
My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.
s/releaved/relieved/g
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
See my point is that I doubt they'd ever fully support all other browsers as well as IE, because they don't want to miss a chance to give IE another boost.
Well, what they're not saying is that it's less code but more markup. If you use their controls then you put all the properties in the .aspx file as an XML object, but you're hardly saving time by setting properties in there vs setting them in code like you used to.
Also, with Atlas you have less of your own code but more of theirs, because you have to use their libraries for all the AJAX functionality. Most people that I know who've been doing things with AJAX already have their own libraries of js written to re-use.
Yes, that is my point. They develop the XMLHTTPRequest and then wait until everyone and his brother has used it to write an Ajax library until they release Atlas.
- Andrew
I meta-moderate because I care.
What is it with Microsoft and its penchant for product names that are virtually useless for doing searches?
Access
Word
Windows
Excel
Publisher
Sequel
Contrast that with:
linux
mozilla
firefox
mysql
php
At least with these, you have a reasonable chance of finding what you're looking for without a ton of other non-related crap.
*shrug*
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
Don't worry, only a few more years of this thin client, rich client stuff and we'll find ourselves all going back to the traditional n-tier client/server models.
"22 astronauts were born in Ohio. What is it about your state that makes people want to flee the Earth?" Stephen Colbert
Well, the AJAX wars have started, and M$ maybe just got off the first shot. We'll see. With http://www.morfik.com/'s public beta just around the corner the RAD IDE AJAX tools are finally coming on scene. We'll see what people can do with these tools, and whether AJAX is REALLY as overrated as some are claiming. Personally I'll bet that once people can get their hands on tools that let them build web apps as easily as they can desktop apps (and unplug them, i.e. run them locally or over the 'net, as you can with Morfik) you'll see a huge increase in web applications.
The number of AJAX tools that are on their way is staggering. http://www.tersus.com/ is one designed for the absolute noob, and http://www.backbase.com/ is also a potential option.
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
No, releathe.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Of course, really it should be:
"Weleathe Pwometheuth"
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Web 2.0 == Buzzword Podcast == a thing Blog == a thing Mashup == anoying as fuck.
Cheers,
Adolfo
I just *knew* someone would come along and point that out :-)
just as I clicked submit. I just *knew* it.
emt 377 emt 4
Standards Compliant Hmn?
:).
Try the CSS one for a real laugh
My UID is prime. Is yours?
I thought it read:
Microsoft Releases [Longhorn] At last
Are you completely retarded?
How this got moderated up is beyond me. It's obvious that you haven't used Atlas, much less even LOOKED at it.
The whole point of the library is to hide away the details, so XMLHttpRequest and it's ilk are tucked away neatly in the variety of external scripts that ship with Atlas.
There are only 4 or 5 controls that come with Atlas, and they're mostly non-visual anyways. The UpdatePanel is a "panel" like control that can automatically reload it's contents on a postback sent via xmlhttprequest. You don't need to do a thing.
Whomever moderated this all the way to +5 is just as retarded as the original poster.
It is Slashdot though ...
I'm not really a fan of MS, but I recognize they have a lot going for them. I'm a PHP developer so please don't assume I'm defending it because I like ASP. Really, I don't.
I think a bunch of people commenting read the press release and made their judgements without actually investigating how incredible the technology is. There was even the flamebait who posted something about cross browser compatibility. Well, watch the freaking demo video before you go trolling. You can find their first of many such demos here:
mms://wm.microsoft.com/ms/uifx/asp_net_atlas.wmv
Maybe I find it amazing because I'm not that used to ASP development, but I'm thoroughly impressed how far MS has come in making developing for their platform easy. The demo I pasted above shows him making a pretty standard data grid. That part is cool, at best, to anybody familiar with ASP, and flat out amazing to anybody who's never seen ASP sites being developed. About 2/3 into the video he busts out the new Atlas code (so fast forward to there). It was maybe 3 additional ASP tags to implement full asynchronous functionality plus one more to setup a "updating..." dialog. Suddenly, a page that required refreshes on any action could add, edit, and *sort* paginated data without any refreshes.
And then he fires up the same code in Firefox and goes to show that it works exactly the same in both browsers. 3 ASP tags.
I'm sorry, but how can you blindly bash that? Sure there's equivalent technology in the works out there (such as rails), but it doesn't make this any less amazing. If there was a development platform as complete as MS's offering but based on Python/PHP, people would be pissing their pants. To ASP developers, this will make creating AJAX functionality unbelievably easy.
MS just scored major Hype 2.0 points today. But the hype isn't all unjustified. Again, go learn about this before you bash it.
Perhaps someone oud introduce a Web 2.0 killer, that would be excellent...
Actually, Microsoft is working on this as well, it's called Avalon (aka WPF). Although it will be a few years until it hits critical mass, it should offer developers the ability to write a single interface for traditional client apps & server/web apps.
blarg.
There are some very compelling reasons for suffering through Javascript-enabled web applications and many of them relate to platform independence and rapid deployment. I can deploy a new version of a web application targeted at multiple browsers and versions, with significant updates, all by dropping the files into the production environment. And they're off running with it.
No, applets are not better. Applets are fatter, you've got client-side sandbox security, and you need a Java VM (not everyone wants to run one of these on their client machines, trust me). Whereas Ajax sits upon dirt simple well established web standards. If Applets were better, Ajax would not have generated the buzz it has. Ajax may not solve the problem as well as it should, but it absolutely points to an as yet unaddressed shortcoming of other available solutions including Java and Java applets.I think you're right about the transient nature of Ajax, however, because it is a transitionary technology. Ajax has opened up a Pandoras box of, "Hey, we can develop web applications with this level of interactivity in a seamless way. Too bad it's a little icky to do. Let's see, what can we do about that?"
In other words, Ajax is a bit like a proof of concept project that will drive some good innovation and web standardization as we move forward so that you can get the nice things of Ajax with a better development model.
It says AJAX, .NET, AND Framework. Beat that!
I am Spartacus
The "browser wars" are over and they aren't coming back.
I think, therefore I doh.
"This library is a wash", that's precious.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Sorry troll, you lose. If you knew anything about it you would know that AJAX is entirely browsewr based and cross platform, and ASP in all its many forms is entirely server-side.
I am Spartacus
It's only for Java-land, but it automates huge swaths of AJAX overhead and allows you to directly call java classes (yes there is a security model controlling what can be invoked).
DWR handles:
- the xml http connection cross-browser
- "marshalls" between Java objects/parameters and JavaScript objects, including javascript mock-ups of Collections, beans, arrays, lists
- adds a bunch of useful JS utilities as well
Now, keeping state between the instantiation of objects is a bit of a pain, but still, this is as easy as it gets. For enterprise web apps, this is an enormously powerful tool. Enterprise web apps can enforce the use of a modern browser. People can stick their heads in the sand all they want, AJAX is here and its changing web development. AJAX is also forcing the web browsers to conform more since AJAX is so JS and CSS heavy. Until MS tries to destandardize it, but what's the difference in appraoches between XAML-IE and XUL-Mozilla? Both are/will be browser-specific. And that's why both will be limited outside of most web development.
Now, I don't want my endorsement of AJAX to bleed into the idiots marketspeaking about Web 2.0. That's a bunch of BS.
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
I was hoping someone would prove me wrong. I just couldn't believe that Microsoft would call it AJAX without it being AJAX! Your mention of "UpdatePanel" did the trick. I couldn't find it in the API anywhere.
:-)
Microsoft needs to be modded -5 bad site design. So if you go to atlas.asp.net (from the summary), does it take you to atlas? No. I was looking at the standard ASP controls that you can get to through the "Tutorials" link. No wonder I was confused! Atlas is actually located here.
The "real" atlas looks more interesting. Half the documentation is broken (e.g. all the "controls" point to the System.UI.Button docs), and I've already managed to find at least one IE-only example, but this is a bit more of what I had in mind.
The whole documentation is so rushed at the moment that it's hard to make a reasonable evaluation. But from what I can tell, Microsoftt is a lot closer, but not quite there yet. We'll have to keep an eye on this one.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
More likely, the summary is screwed up. It takes you here when you need to go here. I discussed this a bit more in my response to someone else.
This is one of those times that I am actually happy to be wrong. With all the nonsense surrounding AJAX as it is, all we needed was Microsoft throwing fuel on the fire.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Do you know how ASP/ASP.Net work? the server-side code spits out a bunch of JavaScript code to the client page. This client-side JavaScript is what talks back to the server. Hmm... AJAX.
MS got bitch-slappedn in the ASP days because its server-side objects (even though you're invoking them from VBScript, you're invoking COM objects) were emitting browser-detecting code and not playing nice with Not-IE, or emit Not-IE hostile JavaScript (i.e., MS' DOM model). With work, it is possible to get around this.
The really hard part is getting an ASP/ASP.Net page to POST to a 3rd-party server, say, like if you're trying to send an XmlSignature to a 3rd-party...
Microsoft is trying to jump headfirst into the Web 2.0 pool and coming this late to the party makes them look pretty stupid. Also can we all stop saying Web 2.0, podacst, blog, and mashup?
Maybe to you, and most other non-ASP/ASP.Netters, but to them, who have equally been as "What is this Rails bullshit?" and head-in-the-sand, they can now rejoice because they can play in this new game too.
Except it's like inviting NY Yankee fans to watch baseball over if you're not a NY Yankees fan yourself...
So you're bashing Microsoft ("this library is a wash" | "Microsoft throwing fuel on the fire") because the Slashdot submitter added an extraneous dot at the end of a URL?
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Here's the site:
http://atlas.asp.net/default.aspx?tabid=47
ASP.NET 2.0 outputs XHTML 1.1
So now someone can displace Microsoft Office 12 / 2006 / Vista using Microsoft Ajax.
I like it.
MjM
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
Am I really the first one to notice that this is just another CTP, not at all unlike the three previous?
I've read that MS won't support XSLT 2.0. Now I have not tried my hand at a real AJAX program. But what I've heard is that AJAX and XSLT go hand-in-hand. With processing occurs totally/primarily on the client-side.
The first article linked to notes ATLAS being "for AJAX-style development." Won't lack of XSLT 2.0 features, like regular expression, limit what ATLAS can do? And will the limitation be to the point where you're better off writting a standard ASP.NET page?
than with classic ASP or technologies like PHP or JSP
.Net... PHP and Classic ASP, perhaps, but JSP, I think you're mistaken.
JSP? Are you sure you're comparing apples and oranges here? JSP is just one part of J2EE, and the combination as a whole is competitive with
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
If Microsoft was Starbucks, there would be a EULA printed on every cup. A lot of EULA madness going on there. I dont know what that was all about.
Google Releases Prometheus.
Clash of Titans to Follow.
Not every argument requires reduction to absurdity.
As part of their release, they have a contest with some useless prizes. The interesting bit is that they are encouraging me to use open source licensing (see "Rules" section):
In addition to submitting your Mash-Ups via the submissions process described above, you must host the source code for each of your submitted Mash-Ups.... You may make the source code for your Mash-Ups available under the license of your choice. However, we encourage you to make the source code available under a BSD-style license, such as the Academic Free License, the Apache License 2.0, the New BSD license, or the MIT license...Anyone care to explain the term "mash-up" to me?
My motto: "A cat is no trade for integrity."
Browsing the Atlas tutorials, I find that the examples work in Firefox, but not IE (syntax errors, mostly), which raises an interesting question: Do developers at microsoft not use IE? Seems like it's time for them to eat their own dog food
No, I was bashing Microsoft because I thought I was looking at the Atlas page. Got a problem with that? Yes? Too damn bad.
The information presented was WRONG. Thankfully, I managed to provoke someone into posting a reply that set me on the right track. Now this thread records that I was wrong, and I'm happy to be wrong.
Feel free to scream and yell about all the Anti-Microsoft trolls all you want. You won't find any listeners here.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
AJAX has potential but it is still an infant. If you want to build a true web application, well hello Java. I must give credit to ASP.NET for allowing direct programmable access to events on HTML objects.
The article doesn't say, but the official site seems to make it sound just like the March CTP (Community Technology Preview) has been released... ..In other words, not the final version, which makes this headline incorrect.
MICROSOFT PRE-RELEASE SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS
MICROSOFT ASP.NET CODE-NAME "ATLAS" MARCH GO LIVE CTP
These license terms are an agreement between Microsoft Corporation (or based on where you live, one of its affiliates) and you. Please read them. They apply to the pre-release software named above, which includes the media on which you received it, if any. The terms also apply to any Microsoft
updates,
supplements,
Internet-based services, and
support services
for this software, unless other terms accompany those items. If so, those terms apply.
BY USING THE SOFTWARE, YOU ACCEPT THESE TERMS. IF YOU DO NOT ACCEPT THEM, DO NOT USE THE SOFTWARE.
If you comply with these license terms, you have the rights below.
1. INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS. You may install and use any number of copies of the software:
to design, develop and test your programs for use with the software; and
in a hosted environment to allow your customers to use, via a web interface, your programs that need the software to run.
2. TERM. The term of this agreement is until August 1, 2006, or commercial release of the software, whichever is first.
3. PRE-RELEASE SOFTWARE. This software is a pre-release version. It may not work correctly or the way a final version of the software will. We may change it for the final, commercial version. We also may not release a commercial version. You are fully responsible for any and all damages that may result due to any failure of the software; and you will notify your users that your web programs rely on pre-release, unsupported software that may not operate correctly.
4. INDEMNIFICATION. You agree to indemnify, hold harmless, and defend Microsoft from and against any claims, allegations, lawsuits, losses and costs (including attorney fees), that arise or result from the use, deployment or distribution of your programs that use the software.
5. FEEDBACK. If you give feedback about the software to Microsoft, you give to Microsoft, without charge, the right to use, share and commercialize your feedback in any way and for any purpose. You also give to third parties, without charge, any patent rights needed for their products, technologies and services to use or interface with any specific parts of a Microsoft software or service that includes the feedback. You will not give feedback that is subject to a license that requires Microsoft to license its software or documentation to third parties because we include your feedback in them. These rights survive this agreement.
6. Scope of License. The software is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights. Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this limitation, you may use the software only as expressly permitted in this agreement. In doing so, you must comply with any technical limitations in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways. You may not
disclose the results of any benchmark tests of the software to any third party without Microsoft's prior written approval;
work around any technical limitations in the software;
reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, except and only to the extent that applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation;
make more copies of the software than specified in this agreement or allowed by applicable law, despite this limitation;
publish the software for others to copy;
deploy the software on a standalone basis for others to access;
distribute the software;
rent, lease or lend the software; or
From the article: "Microsoft is highlighting its upcoming tool for AJAX-style development, code-named Atlas"
AJAX "style development." I take this to mean Microsoft isn't following standards in an attempt to hijack yet another technology. When will they ever learn?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
I've tried the Atlas pre-release on both IE 6 and the latest Firefox. It worked pretty well in both browsers (so far). The samples they have aren't very polished, though.
> "Certainly one thing is clear--even with Atlas, the browser's
... the PR people write the quote for you and ask, "is this OK?"
> capabilities simply don't match those of Windows itself," Lhotka
> said. "The more you want your Web pages to act like Windows, the
> more expensive it becomes. Atlas helps ease some of that cost and
> pain, but my feeling is that ultimately Atlas is a bridge between
> simple HTML and WPF [Windows Presentation Foundation], filling an
> important niche."
I've been in his shoes
Microsoft's campaign to replace the Web with WPF has begun.
But isn't one of the coolest things about AJAX the fact that it's pretty much platform independent? Why would anyone want to tie it to a particular platform? Didn't Java already try that?
Cheers.
You just listed out EXACTLY why someone would want to use a tool like Atlas.
We don't complain about writing GUI applications because its too much work to manipulate every different pixel on the user's screen. We have tools and a technology stack that abstract all of that for us so that we can work with widgets.
That is what Atlas is all about. It gives you the desired functionality of AJAX, without the pain normally required when dealing with the low level details (XML, extensive Javascript, etc).
Go ahead and see if you can count the number of times he says "go ahead" in that video.
Actually it was pretty interesting to watch the video in comparison to all the "20 Minute Wiki" style videos that RoR has made so popular.
apparently, this would be a preliminary step in the right direction to "Fucking kill google" .. and anything not Microsoft Ajax (tm)
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/03/05 15250&from=rss
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
I code Javascript, no two web browsers seem to be able to use the same Javascript and you have to rewrite them for each browser. Then there are those who use web browsers without Javascript like Lynx, or people who disabled their Javascript for fear of Spyware/Adware infecting their system via their browser. Ajax uses Javascript. ASP.NET is supposed to have been designed to be able to run scripts at the web server without running scipts on the client, yet it fails to do this. My old employer tried to switch to ASP.NET when 1.0 was beta back in late 2001. They are still having problems getting ASP.NET working with different browsers that various clients of theirs use, that are not under their control.
My solution was to use Java, instead of client-side scripting in Javascript and VBScript. Then any browser that supports Java can run a Java servlet and it can be programmed to be easy to use. Just make sure that their JRE version matches the one we use to develop the web applications for and everything should work out. I even worked out XML transfers to be used between the corporate web server and the client web server. We only need write one version of the Java application, instead of several versions of the Javascript support for each web page. The time we would have saved on production would have allowed us to do other things. But, nooooooooooooooooo, they went with ASP.NET because Microsoft promised them the moon, and now they are making posts to Microsoft's Newsgroups asking why ASP.NET is not working as Microsoft said it would. I am just sitting back and enjoying the fireworks and relaxing and being glad I am no longer one of those programmers being lead by Managers who have no idea how technology really works.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I'd love to see the bench mark tests that support the smoke their blowing were the sun don't shine...
Perhaps you didn't catch the part where I said watch the video from 2/3 marker. He doesn't use AJAX until that point.
Watch the video very carefully and you will see this. Up to that point, everytime he does an action, the colored bar at the top blinks so you know it is doing a fast refresh. But after he tosses in Atlas, the page is no longer, in fact, reloading. He even puts in a 2 second delay at one point and then you can really see that the page is truly not refreshing.
Like I said, the first 2/3 of the video is him doing standard ASP.NET stuff. It's the last 1/3 that's interesting.
much, much better (and proven!):
Ajax.NET
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
If your using Java and want a good Ajax framework. Check out Icefaces
It's currently in alpha release.
Something from MS that works on MS competitors too? That's unusual. I mean, there's probably a catch in there somewhere, like with ActiveX.
Actually not that unusual... Like Mac Software for the last 20 years...
However the whole concept of Atlas and its use of AJAX is to produce advanced non-browser specific programming capabilities.
So for it to support MS stuff only would be pretty much worthless, even to MS.
How this does help MS is that it showcases the simplicity of ASP.NET 2.0 on the server side and how extensible it is for developers in creating stuff that does work anywhere, but with easy to use, reusable components.
If you look back, this is where sharepoint (office sharepoint) technology started and it is now being wrapped into ASP.NET 2.0 concepts and AJAX as well. Plug in technology with advanced features that do talk with each other well, without a lot of programming having to be invested into it.
And this time, even the non-MS world wins as well...
OpenLaszlo is a high level toolkit for writing GUI apps in the browser. Supports Flash and DHTML is in the works. www.openlaszlo.org click on the DHTML demo.
Ya know, they call it a "buzzword" for a reason.
I'm not sure what kind of XML parsing you'd suggest they do on an image to have google maps qualify your strict definition of AJAX, but for 95% of the world, (those would be the not-so-anal people) it's a great example of an AJAX app in action.
Rest assured though, for your needs you can simply insert "Google Suggest" for "Google Maps" and life won't be so hard on you.
Is this their answer to Google Maps? *ducks*
Actually, EMCA Script is perhaps one of the most object-oriented languages in use today. Absolutely everything is an object and there are no primatives. And as for debugging, Venkma is probably one of the most powerful debugging environments I have ever used for any language or platform?
As for your comment regarding Java Applets, it is really a matter of ubiquity. Every browser (for our intents and purposes) has ECMA Script support. However, not all of them have the Java Runtime Environment plug-in.
Join Tor today!
lol.
Yes, in ASP.NET you can use "HTML server controls" rather than "ASP.NET controls", thus retaining HTML compatibility. But you miss so many features by doing so...
It is unfortunate that it ties the client presentation layer with a MS proprietary web server...but it is Microsoft after all..
It'd be nice if the two could be independent
It's not any different than the nifty Ajax accelerators that ship with Rails -- the whole point is that it's coupled with the server development platform, because the idea is to let you seamlessly use one development platform for both the client and server work.
If you want server-independent client-side JS libraries, there are several good ones, such as scriptaculous. This is something different.
You missed "It hasn't been released, they're still holding it prisoner!"
Only good web page to the average Slashdot troll is a blank web page. That or a web site coded on a typewriter.
yeah! Let's argue on the Internet...
I've read the previous comments that AJAX apps won't cut it because of its dependency on complicated Java and that programming complex UI logic in Javascript is a bad idea.
We've been working on a toolkit called Wt that solves this problem among other issues when attempting to do AJAX. Best of all, it is pattterned on Qt and allows you to design webapps as you would in any desktop Qt application. The event mechanism is handled using signal and slots, allowing the same programming elegance found in Qt-based software. It allows you to focus on the design and logic of your program in one place and one place only! Quite similar to how Qt hides the details of the underlying window system from the programmer. Please check it out!
It already exists and it's called XUL.
They've named their development tool Atlas and their search engine and map tool Windows Live. Good job marketing department!
Rand McNally is going to be pissed!
XHTML 1.0 Transitional is even the default for ASP .NET at least under VS 2005.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Catalyst is a great tool.
After all, I am strangely colored.
Asp.net is less code and is faster if you do a few select things: Grab a complex dataset and do a lot of fance processing on the client. For 90% of the stuff an average person would do, it is a complete wash. Saving the current viewstate is kind of handy, I guess, but that only took a line of code to do in classic asp anyway, so who cares? Most of the time I have 'saved' is usually wasted looking up some esoteric class member that you now have to use becuase you are using asp.net objects.
God have mercy on your soul if you try to do anything non-standard with a Datagrid, because asp.net won't...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
By providing a compatibility layer, their products may actually be compatible with other browsers.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
no two web browsers seem to be able to use the same Javascript
It used to be like that, but hasn't for a while. Since EMCA script became a standard and the current raft of browsers was released it's been a much more level playing field.
As long as you code to the standards, 99% of the time everything works as it should, cross browser. I'm not just talking things like alert('hello world!'), but serious, manipulating the DOM, fancy effects like no-refresh tabs that use sliding images for the background. There's no denying that browser manufacturers could do a bit more, for instance I keep running into a ghost form element problem on Safari (remove an input item from the DOM, dissapears from screen but still gets posted back) but these require just minor tweaks to fix.
then any browser that supports Java can run a Java servlet and it can be programmed to be easy to use.
First of all, Applets run in browsers, not servlets. Secondly, I've not looked into it for a while, but is usability for the disabled of applets still a problem? If so that's a big problem right there, no gov or public sector contracts (in the UK at least, Disability Discrimination Regs).
As far as ASP.NET (at least 2.0) goes, everything seems to work as advertised, validators do their thing client side, and then server side when postback occurs (except in "Downlevel" browsers which only use the server side validators). There should be no denying ASP.NET had flaws in v1/1.1, it didn't output the best html (still doesn't, but it's a lot better) and a lot of things were very IE specific, but they've listened to the critics (most of whom were dyed in the wool MS developers and MVP's who wanted dearly to use ASP.NET for gov contracts but couldn't) and created something that's a joy to use.
I am NaN
Lying astroturfer, fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as objective third party opinion.
It appears to have been mod'ed up by sock puppets too.
Don't think it's an astroturfer? Learn more about undercover marketing, M$' astroturfing history, non-M$ astroturfing, net astroturfing and non-net astroturfing.
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The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Yes, marketers love calling people who spot their lies "trolls" or "paranoid" or something similar.
That's because if you can't counter an argument with facts a good alternative is a negative emotional association, in this case an association with immaturity. No potential customer likes to be associated with immaturity.
Incidentally, the original post is probably only the most obvious piece of astroturf here, there's likely to be several others which are more subtle.
Marketers aren't stupid. They know they're not wanted and will use every trick they can think of to get under people's radar, including fake conversations, strawman arguments, Dorothy Dix'ers, post flooding, article submission flooding, emotional distractions and anonymous no-username posts. The no-username posts are used when they don't want to endanger their slashdot karma as it's needed for mod points to mod their propaganda up. And occasionally, for something particularly important, to mod the competition down.
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Marketing talk is not just cheap, it has negative value. Free speech can be compromised just as much by too much noise as too little signal.
Thanks a lot for this thoughtful answer, there are times I really regret not having moderation points. Alas this kind of posts is becoming more and more common in Slashdot, because its moderation is flawed and is clearly showing its limits.
s t_metric like the one implemented in Advocado for instance.
What we need now is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_resistant_tru
Sadely Wikipedia itself is starting to have the same problem, its high visibility is attracting lots and lots of spammers and people quietly pushing their ideology agenda and Marketing.
If this sort of post bothers you, I can't imagine how you can deal with any of the comment forums on this site. The Apple Topics in particular are choked with "appleturf", as are any "free software" or EFF topics. The moderation system in general encourages and rewards "Party Line" posts so that's what you get.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
"Microsoft today announced Atlas: An effort to infect the largely FOSS platforms collectively known as AJAX with Microsoft's own ASP technology. One spokesman said, 'We've been largely left out of the AJAX party. Maybe they think that's why its successful, but for who? Not us! WAAAAH!'"
You need to update your web.config or machine.config file by including a browsercap section. Check out Rob Eberhardt's page explaining this.
God have mercy on your soul if you try to do anything non-standard with a Datagrid, because asp.net won't...
.NET's limitations is testament to that fact.
.NET. I don't know what that means but it scares me.
I found that to be the case with anything not in Microsoft's anemic samples. It seems if you don't fit into the specific profiles Microsoft planned for you're in for a hell of a time. The fact there are so many web pages about how to get around
I just noticed we have god, hell, and testament all in one post, yet the post is about
Developers: We can use your help.
Try this... very simple. (works definately in IE.. having issues in Firefox)
e ("UniversalBrowserRead");
/ >
<input type="button" value="Google" id="display1" style="border: 1px solid #000;" onclick="makeRequest('http://www.google.com')"/>
<html>
<head>
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
var xmlHttp;
function GetXmlHttpObject(handler)
{
var objXmlHttp=null
if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Opera")>=0)
{
alert("This example doesn't work in Opera")
return
}else
if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("MSIE")>=0)
{
var strName="Msxml2.XMLHTTP"
if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE 5.5")>=0)
{
strName="Microsoft.XMLHTTP"
}
try
{
objXmlHttp=new ActiveXObject(strName)
objXmlHttp.onreadystatechange=handler
return objXmlHttp
}
catch(e)
{
alert("Error. Scripting for ActiveX might be disabled")
return
}
}
if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Mozilla")>=0)
{
try {
netscape.security.PrivilegeManager.enablePrivileg
} catch (e) {
alert("Permission UniversalBrowserRead denied.");
}
objXmlHttp=new XMLHttpRequest()
objXmlHttp.onload=handler
objXmlHttp.onerror=handler
return objXmlHttp
}
}
function makeRequest(url)
{
xmlHttp = GetXmlHttpObject(processData);
xmlHttp.open("GET", url, true);
xmlHttp.send(null);
}
function processData()
{
if (xmlHttp.readyState==4 || xmlHttp.readyState=="complete")
{
document.getElementById("results").innerHTML = xmlHttp.responseText;
}
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<input type="button" value="Microsoft" id="display1" style="border: 1px solid #000;" onclick="makeRequest('http://www.microsoft.com')"
<input type="button" value="Yahoo" id="display1" style="border: 1px solid #000;" onclick="makeRequest('http://www.yahoo.com')"/>
<div id="results"></div>
</body>
</html>
00101010
I find your ideas intreaguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
It was fun to point out that you are full of it, though. Next time think before you type?
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
???
You might find this useful:
"Jealousy is an ugly and self-destructive attitude"
You aren't doing yourself any favors with your anger and envy. I think you'll find that in trying to hurt others, you are primarily hurting yourself. You may also find that you'll be a much happier person in life if you try to work with others rather than tearing them down.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
C'mon now, do you think I'm 12 or something? You must be mistaking me for one of the people who post inane comments to your blog. It's simply amusing to see how you've become some sort of weird darling of the moderation system, and it's equally amusing to see you shoot from the hip like you did with the comment that generated this thread. That's all. It's hardly my fault that you popped a coronary back there. Though you might want to reconsider the "internet tough guy" 'tude. It's really ridiculous.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
You just need to add more browserCaps settings to your machine.config or web.config files to get better output on Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc. You can find them here: http://slingfive.com/pages/code/browserCaps/
You can set your target HTML schema (HTML 4.0, XHTML 1.0, strict, transitional, whatever) as well, but exactly where escapes me at the moment. It's a project-wide setting somewhere.