Slashdot | AJAX Buzzword Reinvigorates Javascript

Slashdot | AJAX Buzzword Reinvigorates Javascript:

For me, the crux of the usefulness and eventual adoption and finally complete embracing of AJAX lies in the article's paragraph:

Some of the buzz surrounding AJAX has been generated by Web designers as well as programmers. AJAX?s flexibility is invigorating for Web designers because JavaScript can control any aspect of any images or type on a page. Fonts can grow or shrink. Tables can add or lose lines. Colors can change. Although none of these capabilities are new to programmers accustomed to building client applications -- or, for that matter, Java applets -- they are novelties to Web designers who would otherwise be forced to rely on Macromedia (Profile, Products, Articles) Flash.

I've seen what Google has done with AJAX (e.g., Google suggest), and it's stuff I never imagined could be so repsonsive in a web context. For me it starts to make programming fun again, and web programming an acceptable form of application development.

When browsers and web first emerged I could see the writing on the wall, but I wasn't happy about it. Browser application writing from the programming perspective was probably the single most giant leap backwards in technology for me (not including technologies introduced by Microsoft)....: you mean, all the years I've spent honing skills writing applications no longer apply? You mean I no longer have "state" as a tool for maintaining sanity in my application???? Hwaahhh??? I have to do what to change the web page???

While there have been some technologies (ASP, JSP, etc) to help with these issues, none have addressed the responsiveness issue with the web page round trip message loop. AJAX comes close. Now all I have to do is learn it.

For a great example of the responsive nature of this (I've referenced this before), go to Google Personal Home [google.com], set up your own home page, and play... Configure your modules by dragging them around... open and close your g-mail previews. This all starts looking alot like programs actually running locally on your own machine. (I'm assuming all are familiar with and have played similarly with Google Maps [google.com].)

Additionally, here are some very good resources to learn more about AJAX:

• Very Dynamic Web Interfaces [xml.com]
• XMLHttpRequest Introduction [sourceforge.net]
• An example [webpasties.com]
• Using the XML HTTP Request object [jibbering.com]
• Dynamic HTML and XML [apple.com]
• XMLHttpRequest API madness [aaronland.info]
• Sarissa [sourceforge.net]
• JavaScript: The World's Most Misunderstood Programming Language [crockford.com]
• What kind of language is XSLT? [ibm.com]

That's it, I'm done.