What's The Verdict, Web or Not?

[Dan Shafer]

Packagng up neatly things that have been around a while and writing
documentation about the resulting "thing" is valuable work and makes a
useful contribution to the technology culture. I consider myself to be
fairly conversant with Web development technologies, particulalry JavaScript
and CSS, about which I have written books and which I've used in lots of
projects. However, the implications of the XMLHTTPRequest object that is at
the heart of the key concept in AJAX escaped my attention for a long while.
That's because it was originally implemented by MS as an IE-only technology
(ActiveX components) and were therefore of little interest to me.

There is a lot of disparagement in this and related threads on this board of
the Web interface, but unless you've spent some time really looking at what
can be done with the UI in a browser when you can eliminate the repeated
server round-trips and full-page refreshes of the "old Web," you really
can't know for sure whether those limitations are real or not. I've been
quite shocked by the fine quality of the UI in many AJAX applications (as
have many thousands of others). They approach, but do not quite yet reach,
the fluidity and transparency of a true application interface. And in
situations like those that have been described by educators and some IT
directors directly and indirectly here, the browser deliverability of the
applications is often seen as a huge win.

Your recent comparison of this technology to smart pigeons replacing bloated
airline freight hauling was, by the way, brillilantly on target. I'm going
to steal it in talking with clients. Maybe you should have copyrighted it!
LOL



On 7/5/06, Andre Garzia <soapdog at mac.com> wrote:
>
> They might me the evil conglomerate of O'Reilly and Friends that
> coins things like Web 2.0 and AJAX and other acronyms that means
> nothing but sells books....
>
> (heck even I have a Foundations of AJAX book... as if this thing was
> new and not been around since 2000)
>
> Andre
>
> On Jul 5, 2006, at 12:57 PM, Richard Gaskin wrote:
>
> > Stephen Barncard wrote:
> >
> >> This is the first time that I've heard AJAX understandably
> >> explained and defined!
> >> Their web site doesn't even do that. They already assume you know.
> >
> > AJAX (aka JavaScript/DHTML) is an open standard -- who is "they"?
> >
> > --
> >  Richard Gaskin
> >  Fourth World Media Corporation
> >  ___________________________________________________________
> >  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com
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-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dan Shafer, Information Product Consultant and Author
http://www.shafermedia.com
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