Revolution and the Web, feedback wanted, Part 1 of 3

[Brian Yennie]

>> Note that, in spite of the name, you don't have to use xml with AJAX.
>> I use the combination of an AJAX front end on a web page to invoke  
>> rev
>> cgi scripts on the server in order to update a section of the page.
>> Works fine without any actual xml involved. I prefer to call it AJAR.
> I have never seen a well-scaled app that worked this way.  There has,
> in my experience been too much traffic back and forth to make it
> efficient.  It isn't that the server can't handle the load, but
> generally the clients can't.

I must not be understanding your comment - how does this generate any  
more traffic than using XML, or for that sake - using frames instead  
of asynchronous calls? Lots of well-scaled apps update portions of  
the page from remote scripts - that's pretty much every "Web 2.0"  
product on the market. Sticking XML in the middle, if you don't  
really need it, only creates *another* layer of processing. It's not  
like XML is less verbose than HTML, or that plain text takes up a lot  
of bandwidth...

>> That said, you're spot on about the hardest part being "accurately
>> representing what you want your application to do". And that's true
>> for any app, not just restricted to AJAX.
> What makes this harder, though, is the fact that you are taking an
> application that is already written and essentially converting it to
> something else.  That, I think is the hard part, because you are
> asking the machine to do it.

I think the only reasonable expectation would be that you develop in  
some sort of a "web compatibility" mode. It would be nearly  
impossible to convert just any existing Rev stack.

- Brian