Cutting Through the Ajax Hype 77
An anonymous reader writes "If you're thinking about building an Ajax application of your own, this article would be a good place to start. It's an introductory-level guide about when and how to implement Ajax. It provides a balanced discussion about where exactly using Ajax makes sense, and where it does not."
Isn't it sort of saddening... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Or am I feeding a troll I haven't come across before, here? Hm.
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Not sure whether that's a problem with Slashdot's experimental discussion system or with my lack of sleep. Ah well, my apologies!
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They already did, and it's called the quote button. If what you quote doesn't match the text it appears you're replying to, then readers will know that there's a hidden post in between.
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w/o java? (Score:1)
Ajax Hype (Score:4, Interesting)
We did many of the same things using that technique that people are doing now in Ajax, interactive games, and database etc using it.
Suddenly some marketing guy calls it "Ajax", which is almost doing the same thing is all the rage.
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Now in this day and age, things like java applets and Flash get shoved aside, even if it actualy DOES make sense to use them in a given situation. Thus people being all over ajax.
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This stuff isn't rocket surgery.
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After that, so long as your content was rectangular, you could just use the IFRAME itself to accomplish the same effect as what Google does today with "Ajax" in a table
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Except that it didn't work in Netscape 4.x. Which was the big reason why it didn't take off back then.
(Yes, I pulled the IFrame trickery several times as well.)
Why does it have to be inline? (Score:2)
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Not really. Netscape 4 couldn't make any changes to the document once it was rendered. Later versions allowed for some colors to be dynamically swapped, and for objects to be resized to reflow the page. But you couldn't actually add or subtract any information.
In my case, I had used the IFrame to show a list of selected items as the user checked them. The user could page through different weeks on a calendar, so it was important to t
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1996? JavaScript was barely out and buggy and crashy up the wazoo.
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One of the major reasons AJAX is having success now is that it actually works - now.
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Yes it was. But we had it working fairly reliably overall. This was also working with my livecam server push jpeg video.
www.livecamserver.com
What's amazing is Microsoft deliberatly went out of there way to break the X-mixed-multipart we were using to get MS IE to play the video.
This article is moot (Score:3, Insightful)
Then XAML and XUL will see greater adoption for rich client development and we return to the days when ajax was just a household cleaner.
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Tell me about it. I had to help my dad get some pics off of an MLS site for realtors (he's in real estate) and it said 'IE' only. I had to hit refresh a few times because I didn't believe it; what year is this?!?!
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I'd like to see the JavaScript go away, but it's at least theoretically possible to build an efficient JavaScript compiler/interpreter, and it is a damned powerful language. The problem is, HTML was designed to mark up web pages. It ma
Re:This article is moot (Score:5, Insightful)
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Good. It will take their mind off of trying to use every GOF OOP pattern in the book just for the hell of it.
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Too Sloanie (Score:1)
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Don't tell me tomorrow that you're going to realize that JavaScript has a window resizing feature, say "wow wow wow" again, and decide as a management guy that it has to be called "Awacs"
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Hypes (Score:1, Interesting)
Ajax is getting hyped to the point where it isn't funny anymore. I bet it will go the way of XML - simple and interesting at first, then the "Enterprise" folk run away with it and within 2 years we have W3C AJAX standards that span 1000 pages. Wanna bet?
Rich Client Demand (Score:1)
Part of it is driven by the desire to have "rich GUI" apps that work like and have the features of desktop app GUI's. The world is wanting. Wether AJAX can deliver that or not is another matter. Getting HTML to act like a desk
Re:AJAX's hatred of the middle-click. (Score:4, Informative)
It's not Ajax per se that disallows it. The problem is that a lot of developers use <a href="#" onclick="..."> and don't provide an actual URI to open.
Yes, it is, and I've said as much in the past. It's actually even worse than the average clueless developer, because it doesn't even use <a> for links - it uses <span> and click handlers to provide really, really crappy emulated links. Of course, doing so immediately throws the normal link handling your web browser provides out the window, including (but not limited to) opening them in new tabs or windows.
It's not. It's usually either developer ignorance or developer apathy - they either don't know how to do it or they don't care.
You can right-click on Gmail (Score:1)
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GMail is a major culprit. Being able to open a number of messages simultaneously is essential....
I've had that problem with some AJAX pages too, thought it only rarely bothers me in gmail. Flash sites have the same problem, and I actually am annoyed by it in them way more than in the AJAX ones.
And for viewing multiple gmail m
Ajax is no easy substitute for good design (Score:5, Insightful)
So now everybody thinks that if their website can just be written with AJAX technology it will automatically come with a smooth, user-friendly and beautiful interface.
AJAX is just one technique. You still need to be highly skilled at all the other web-coding disciplines else to end up with a great web app.
It Makes Sense (Score:1)
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Cutting through the ajax hype-hype (Score:3, Interesting)
"Last month, I was on my way to visit a friend. It was dark and I got lost, and I tried to find his address in my computer. His coordinates were included in the e-mail he sent me that day. Unluckily for me, that e-mail message was sent to my GMail account, and, being disconnected from the Internet, I was left with quite a negative experience. In one split second, all the benefits of zero-install, a cool UI, labels, free targeted advertisements, an extremely useful search engine, and platform independence were annihilated when I could not find my friend's address because I was out of range of a Wi-Fi hotspot."
GOD DAMN YOU AJAX, CLEARLY YOU HAVE NO COMPASSION FOR THE ILL-PREPARED!! This would have never happened had you been using a non-ajax internet mail application, or even GMail's HTML only version. Ajax isn't only overhyped, it's out to get you. Here's another great snippet:
"JavaScript applications run in a browser, and can be easily reengineered. By loading JavaScript files on demand, you can fool Internet Explorer users; but other browsers, such as Firefox, will eagerly show a user the current DOM in its entirety through the context menu's View Selection Source option. If someone really wants to see your application's entire JavaScript source and analyze it, a simple script built with the Mozilla® Greasemonkey extension, a debugger like Venkman, or a custom Internet Explorer toolbar would do the trick."
Yes folks, he is correct here. Ever since ajax has come about, all the sudden your javascript and DOM is viewable to anyone with enough inclination to do the digging. Before "Asynchronous" and "and XML" came along, this certainly wasn't the case, I liked the good ol' days when it was just "J."
I could go on and about the evils of ajax, but what I would really like to point out, as this guy already has, is that the heart of this evil scourge is the internet itself. Never mind the fact that any 16 year-old girl going to meet a sexual predator on mySpace has the capacity to print a map out before hand because clearly, the intarweb will no longer be available once she has departed on her journey. But thats beside the point. Uninstall your browsers immediatly.
The Answer is a Framework (Score:2)
Frameworks help decouple a lot of things. For example, instead of using M$ 'Atlas' Ajax framework which is not only a bugger to use but introduces a lot of unnecessary coupling, I use Anthem.NET [sourceforge.net]. It takes the existing ASP.NET form tags and extends them. This produces 3 net effects: 1) I don't have to do the crap load of mundane javascript coding (Anthem.Net takes care of that), 2) Should javascript functionality be disabled on the client, the form objects revert back to their regular POST behavior (becau
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FINALLY (Score:1)
Is this relevant? (Score:3, Insightful)
No - you couldn't find your address because you were stupid enough not to jot it down on a piece of paper when you had the chance. Seriously, blaming GMail for not being able to access data locally is asking a bit too much of the Internet, le talone of Ajax!
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Paper? Why use paper when you have a computer. Just wondering. Unless, it's a toilet paper, of course - nothing can replace that.
"Myspace Passes Yahoo in Pageviews..." (Score:2)
"Yahoo continues to be the overall Web audience leader with the largest number of unique users and most time spent online. The page view change in November is related to the use of Ajax and other Web 2.0 technologies across the Yahoo network," Yahoo spokeswoman Nissa Anklesaria said Tuesday.
So forget about Ajax if metrics mean anything to your bottom line. BTW, Ajax is making Yahoo a pain in the ass. All those little "helpful" popup balloon are just killing me a