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Microsoft Joins OpenAjax Alliance
Kurtz writes "Microsoft has joined The OpenAjax Alliance, which is focused on accelerating the use of Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, or Ajax, technologies. Microsoft said it agreed to join the alliance to work with other vendors to evolve Ajax."
Microsoft only seeks to control that which threatens its bread and butter.
In this case, the concept that AJAX presents is a killer app to the bread and butter business of Productivity Software. With AJAX one can create the software one needs, and there is no restrictions on client OS other than a browser that properly displays AJAX components.
Combine this with the idea from Adobe on sandboxing this in a wrapper for distribution away from Client/Server architecture which is completely platform independant, and you have a huge problem for Microsoft.
They are going to try to tie specific implementations to Proprietary products (Windows, IE etc).
Resistance is Futile.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Back in IE 5.0 when XMLHTTPRequest was an ActiveX function commentators, by the logic used in this thread, might have cried "Embrace extend extinguish! This is MS trying to remove competitors and forcing them to play catch up!".
Years on XMLHTTPRequest is a JavaScript function which is the backbone of AJAX everywhere; Microsoft officially joins an initiative to get a more uniform AJAX platform and people cry "Embrace extend extinguish! This is MS trying to remove competitors and forcing them to play catch up!".
I'm not saying others wouldn't have come up with it if Microsoft hadn't, but it does say something about calling foul too often and too early.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
How could this be bad?
Do you remember how they supported Java? Lots of stalling, equivocating and Windows-only Java extensions, all while promoting ActiveX over Java. Eventually, all these actions prompted a lawsuit from Sun which Sun won. After this, Microsoft totally dropped support of their JVM in a fit of spite.
Let's face it: Microsoft doesn't promote or like standards. What they like are proprietary technologies that only they can effcetively use.
Microsoft created the XMLHTTPRequest object in IE. Then other browsers implemented it. So AJAX effectively went from being IE-only to a de-facto standard. I think your point of view is backwards.
Don't get me wrong. I hate Microsoft and they have embraced-extended-extinguished many things. But AJAX probably won't be one of them.
Developers: We can use your help.
The most important advantage we're hoping to get out of OpenAjax is JavaScript namespacing. Prototype, Dojo and others will all too happily clobber each other's functions and objects, rendering them useless when used together. A consistent naming standard is one of the most immediate tangible benefits of the alliance.
When I moderate, I only use "-1, Overrated". That way, I never get meta-moderated!
To quote someone or another, "you sir, are an idiot." The AC was perfectly correct in stating that XML is nothing more than an overhyped method for organizing elements of a document and that it does nothing what-so-ever to define the semantics of the elements. A CSV file has 99% of the same benefits of XML for most uses. Just about the only thing you can't do with a CSV vs an XML document is easily transmit hierarchical data.
The fact that MS can generate an XML document that has no human-understandable elements is a failure of XML, and nothing less.