AJAX development resources

[Buffy]

I'm starting to dabble in AJAX. Anyone here doing much with it? I'm trying to locate everybody's favorite "web resources" for it: good sites with info, tools, etc.

 

Jump right in!

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[geokker]

I was initially interested, but am put off by its lack of accessibility. Also, while I get excited with XML (especially SVG), Java makes me ill. Sun Microsystems makes me ill - just look at the utter, complete dog that is Open Office.

 

I like Google maps but think it could be better implemented in SVG - controversial I know.

 

Google Suggest - can't see what the big deal is there + I can't see the benefit.

 

I think developers should concentrate on better usability and general design of CSS and HTML implementations before moving onto gee-whizz AJAX shenanigans.

 

It sort of reminds me of Flash 'enabled' sites - neat, but usually hampers access to information.

[alexander]

why does google use java? simple because they dont all program in java and use better languages for their products. need i remind you of jython?

[Buffy]

I actually don't like AJAX's approach much either, mostly because its only conceptual, and there's no "standard" there other than in-place browser XML txns that can only exist because there's one fairly stably implemented javascript object that does it. The folks who think this is "new" don't know what they're talking about.

 

OTOH, AJAX seems to be gaining some popularity, and due to the fact that we must live with these brain damaged thin clients called browsers (anyone old enough to remember X-server workstations? Light years beyond browsers...), its *something* that definitely helps both response time and "smart" client behavior. Javascript programming is totally sucky, and I hate it, but what I'm looking for here is if opinions on some of the layered js libraries built on the AJAX model that are starting to creep out.

 

So, *bump* opinions? Biases? Faves? Don't tell me *no* one here has anything to say about it....

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[coldhead]

Have a look at Ruby on Rails, has AJAX built-in.

comes with a ruby web-server will also run on Apache and fastcgi.

[alexander]

lol, you've been reading this month's Linux Journal, i can tell, its not like its a bad thing :hihi:

 

AJAX, since our last discussion of it has progressed, and although i dont like the language of choice, i do appreciate what google did with it. I mean, they built an online text editor that has spellchecking and all kinds of other crazy stuff. Google is definitely up on all of their AJAX stuff, i still prefer Python to Java, and i wont learn Jave till they open-source it, but hey whatever drives your wagon right?

[Buffy]

Of course I'm evil. I'm writing Ajax in .Net.... Sorry, have to because of our code base, until we re-write it from scratch....

 

Ruby is interesting but its also idiocyncratic and its a dangerous UI/API lock-in at this point. If I had my choice I'd prolly follow alex and write python with jython (am I kidding? you decide! :hihi: ) to make the raw AJAX calls... Still lookin for more resources, hopefully several abstractions lower than Ruby...

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[rockytriton]

I never heard of AJAX, guess I'll look into it. Google uses java? All the job postings I've seen for them are for C and C++ engineers. Ruby is a really cool OO script language, I like it better than python just because I can't see myself using a language that uses whitespace as a part of its syntax.

[alexander]

there is a reason python is white pace sensitive, and you can read all about it on python's website! its not bad, if you use a decent editor or a plugin for one to do auto white spacing, i have absoltely no problems with whitespace (emacs with a little color-customized python mode, but the "engine" worksvery well).

Ruby is a cool language, not as popular as python but nontheless cool. BTW python is a big plus on applications to Sun and Google, they do develop a lot in java, they also develop a lot in python, mainly use C++ for their big projects, but python programmers tend to fromat their code better because it is white space sensitive :confused:

[rockytriton]

yea, I don't need the language to tell me how to format, I format well anyway. Good thing I'm not thinking of joining Google or Sun I guess, I wouldn't want to do python or ruby even for a living. Then again, I hate my current job so maybe I should learn python and do something new.

[Tormod]

Is this the same AJAX that is used in vBulletin 3.5? If so then we'll be using it from January 1. :confused:

[alexander]

I wouldn't want to do python or ruby even for a living

I'd love to write in Python for a living, it is still a gazillion times better then getting a job that only uses Java! Its really not a bad language, people do complain about spacing, i was one of them, but now it is firtst of all automagic and second of all i really dont even notice it now, it becomes second nature, but once again if you read python's history, it was a language to teach people how to program, it then caught up with hackers who enjoyed the forced clarity of the language because, well read some perl scripts and then tell me that they are not as easy to read as any python script...

[alexander]

T, yuh, that's definitely AJAX, you know whats cool? the new plugins for vbulletin, like the one that integrades skype and vbulletin, which i can see being cool, if you release your skype info people can click on an icon and call you in a matter of a second! ... i can see where it would be cool to use....

[Buffy]

T, yuh, that's definitely AJAX, you know whats cool? ..., if you release your skype info people can click on an icon and call you in a matter of a second! ...

Yeah, the main advantage is that its really fast and can cut down on tremendous amounts of overhead. In our application we have a lot of cascading selection lists, and in the past we had to pull in huge Javascript structures that would refill dependent pulldowns based on previous selections. We're recoding this with AJAX and lots of memory/page size problems have magically disappeared along with it being blazingly faster... Thanks to the browser vendors (and IE7) we've got this working very portably across all platforms...

 

I'm still looking for a slightly higher set of wrappers than the ones we've cobbled together, so if anyone has any comments, I'm still interested...

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[coldhead]

 

1. Of course I'm evil.

 

2. Ruby is interesting but its also idiocyncratic

 

3. and its a dangerous UI/API lock-in at this point.

 

4. Still lookin for more resources, hopefully several abstractions lower than Ruby...

 

Buffy

1. thats ok, aren't we all.

2. how so?

3. explain what you mean by ' UI/API lock-in'

4. http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/09/rails_ajax.html

[Buffy]

1. thats ok, aren't we all.

Whew!

2. how so?

Languages. They're all idiosyncratic! This has mostly to do with the fact that it is indeed trying to invent yet another transactional / UI paradigm. We have enough of these. (Aside: I'm an expert on these topics. I used to get paid an embarrasing amount of money to pontificate about them as an industry analyst [as did a couple of other folks in my family], so I have some reason to think I can blather endlessly about these topics with some amount of credibility...)

3. explain what you mean by ' UI/API lock-in'

Not enough market share. Lets just say that in a former life I liked Powerbuilder. So much for that!

4. http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/09/rails_ajax.html

Thanks! That's useful!

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[coldhead]

Whew!

. Lets just say that in a former life I liked Powerbuilder. So much for that!

Cheers,

Buffy

 

ASAI'mC PB is the best 4GL ever invented. (I'll stand by that statement)

When I gave up IT as a full time job I thought , thats the end of it(IT) as far as I'm concerned...

Ruby brought me back into the IT pack (as it were). I would to any/every-one as a first/last language.

 

Thanks for the reply Buffster.

 

P.S.

i'm just trying to generate a bit of Ruby mindshare.