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What's Spreading "the AJAX Wildfire"?
An anonymous reader writes "AJAXWorld Magazine is running an article entitled "What's So Special About AJAX?" in which the majority of the contributors agree among themselves that AJAX "heralds a new, global sense of what the web can be and what the web can do, in ways that are so different but so much better than what we have been used to." While many of those the magazine consulted adduced technical reasons for the spread what one of them, Rich Internet Application pioneer Coach Wei, calls "the AJAX wildfire," only two mention how human nature — including that of software developers — is, well, notoriously susceptible to the latest fad. Which side would you agree with?"
Ajax runs on IE; XUL doesn't. That's going to increase its "installed base" by an order of magnitude.
Ajax also lacks an installation step. As far as I can tell you always had to download and approve XUL code before it could run, and sometime requires you to reboot your browser.
Availability is always going to trump elegance when it comes to environments.
AJAX is not a fad. People aren't using AJAX just because it's AJAX. It's not for buzzword-compliance, although it has become a buzzword. It's not for adding useless frills, although it can be used for useless frills. AJAX is a tool to enable web developers to build sites that are actually better for the user, in a very real way. Better functionality, better usability, overall a better user experience. Things that simply weren't possible to do before.
Slashdot's new comment system uses AJAX to make my Slashdot experience better. They're not done with it yet, but what they've got so far makes it easier to browse Slashdot. The link to read the rest of a very long truncated comment now loads the rest of the comment inline into the page, instead of reloading the entire page like it used to; I can read replies without opening the links in a new tab and switching back and forth like I used to, I can even change my thresholds without reloading. Sometimes I like to open several articles on my laptop and read them when I'm offline; that works better now. Next will be a more convenient way to moderate, and a better way to write replies.
Will AJAX go away? Sure, after a better technology comes along. But until then, AJAX is genuinely useful.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
The AJAX hype is like the DHTML craze all over again. IMO if you can't create a site using remote scripting without suppressing the urge to advertise to the world that you're doing so, chances are you're abusing the technology. Why should your user base care what the hell technology you're using? It should just work.
Never underestimate the power of a catchy name. AJAX's underlying technologies have been around for a while, but it wasn't until someone slapped the acronym onto it that it's really taken off. AJAX is easy to say and easy to remember, evokes a bit of mystery and jargon (one more conspiracy against the layman), and is named after a legendary Greek hero. What more could a marketing person want? The name is simply an inspired choice.
It seems to me that you have to separate out why Ajax is spreading among developers, and why Ajax-based applications are popular with users. These are not totally independent, of course, but worth thinking of in different ways.
... well, boring.
I see Ajax-based applications as being very reminiscent of the what used to be called "full-duplex" applications. Unix, because it was based on using teletypes for I/O to the user, and because teletypes were inherently full-duplex, seemed much more interactive, at least with some applications. Nothing quite like Ajax, but a step in that direction. Conventional main-frame apps, based on either half-duplex (I type, then I hit carriage return, and the keyboard locks until the system responds) or electronic versions of that (such as with the famous 3270 displays, which would lose characters if you typed when the system wrote to the screen), were much more
So, it seems to me that, from the user's viewpoint, Ajax can allow the app builder to effectively decouple user input and system output, and make the whole "flow" between system and user be much more continuous, and less synchronized. Another way of seeing this is thinking of an overseas phone call in the days of poor channel allocators, which really made it necessary to stop talking when the other person started, or neither of you would hear the other. Nothing at all like a really engaged, face-to-face, conversation.
But javascript didn't change application architecture other than offloading field validation or allowing table column sorting, image swapping and stuff. AJAX breaks the web document model. A bigger change has come with other applications that use the web (ie http and URIs) outside of the browser - like RSS for instance. and websites that provide an API with xml-rpc or something similar. that's huge. the javascript change is nothing compared to that. web services, I guess they're called.
so to answer the question: is it a fad? yes, in the sense that now is the time to cash in with your 1115 page Bleating with AJAX book with DVD-ROM in the back and your smug mug on the front. yes, in the sense that lots of people will do unnecessary AJAX implementations for entirely selfish resume-style reasons. no, in the sense that the existence of AJAX points out the disconnect between the browser concept and what we want for applications on the net.
must... stay... awake...