Craig’s Musings

Ever since Jesse James Garrett from Adaptive Path published the article coining the AJAX acronym (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML), my Technorati watchlist feed for ajax has out posted my watchlist feed for smart client by a minimum multiplier of almost four (i.e. nearly four AJAX hits for each hit on smart clients with a current total of 2326 AJAX posts to a current total of 514 smart client posts). A nearly 4:1 ratio does make some wonder and others react (see Atlas references below).

As you can see by the date of this post versus the date of the catalytic article (2/18)–let alone the release of applications incorporating AJAX–I missed the blogging heyday by a fair number of days and weeks. This was intentional, since I’m not terribly concerned with technology for technology’s sake nor with the latest development fad. (Having been in the business 15 years, I’ve seen enough of these come and go.) Rather I wanted to wait long enough to gather a clearer sense of the benefits and cost of incorporating AJAX into enterprise applications–what is gained, what is lost, what requires extra work to maintain, etc. So, without further ado…

Bibliography of Lessons Learned (Educated Opinions)

• Very dynamic web interfaces
• BOF learnings
• Considered harmful (i.e. some constructive criticism (when frameworks go bad – more)
• IP issues
• Prohibitive cost of development
• Similarities to and differences from smart clients
• The Software Industry Devolves into the Fashion Industry (more and again)
• Wisdom regarding usage
• Markets abhor a vacuum – the truth of the post title alone made me smile
• Accessibility concerns (here, too)
• Perspective (forest vs. trees) (more)
• “You wouldn’t use a brand new screwdriver to drive a nail.”
• Notes from a conference session with Ajaxian (more)
• JavaScript callback API consequences
• The Ajax Reality Distortion Field (from Laszlo’s gutsy CTO)
• Sun Blueprints (e.g. integration with JavaServer Faces
• Some history along with some code (Struts-related)
• Excluded users
• Promise or hype?
• Not page-based or window-based but new
• Progressive enhancement (i.e. what to do when client lacks support)
• One way to justify the cost of development (i.e. compare user experience with and without support)
• As a privacy solution
• Common mistakes to avoid (more) – commentary
• Current limitations
• Reconsidered (follow-up; reaction)
• About user experience
• Quality of user experience (reactions, negative and positive
• Takeaways
• Interface design
• Usability design patterns
• Patterns

The following applications incorporate AJAX principles, for example, to achieve richer user experience:

• GMail
• Google Suggest
• Google Maps
• Antarctica Systems Visual Net
• Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA)
• Flickr
• Netflix
• WP-Touched WordPress plug-in

The following frameworks incorporate AJAX to increase developer productivity:

• Ruby on Rails (introduction)
• Dojo Toolkit
• Prototype
• Simpe AJAX Code Kit (SACK)
• Simple AJAX Toolkit (SAJAX)
• Echo2
• AJAX.NET Library
• Microsoft Atlas (more, more, more)

Most of the following tend to be categorized under technologies that enable Rich Internet Applications, a term coined by Macromedia (soon to be Adobe): Flash (relationship), Flex, and OpenLaszlo (Laszlo Systems’ take on RIA). DHTML should also be mentioned along with XUL, XAML, and SVG.

Keep up with the Jones’ via these tag clouds (but I’m signing off at this point): del.icio.us, Furl, and Technorati.

Craig
http://craigrandall.net/
Twitter: @craigsmusings