World: r3wp

I really don't understand all the buzz about Ajax. About 1998/1999 
a friend of mine and I made a remote Javascript debugger that used 
IFrames to update the client page without reloading. And we were 
able to remote debug the client side. The problem was, that we really 
drove the Javascript and DOM engines to the limit...

If someone is interested I can see if I find the old sources.

I guess it's really just because most people (me included) didn't 
know about it until recently. :-) And it's so nice, because (as Reichart 
said) it's for some things the way it should have been done in the 
first place. (it's nice for me, because in a small project I'm doing 
right now, I can skip almost all PHP coding, because I can do most 
stuff in Javascript and just let the PHP do the database handling)

Bear in mind that around 10% of all people do not have javascript 
enabled. That way be through choice, necessity, or following US government 
security advice.

Javascript usage stats: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Before clicking on a link to a web site that you are not familiar 
with or do not trust, take the precaution of disabling active content.
:
http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST04-012.html


With PHP all the oomph is in the server , so it is under your control. 
As you cannot guarantee that JS will be available in the client if, 
extra steps are needed to ensure the website works without it -- 
even though it may work spectacularly better with it.

Good point.

But Ajax nees JS as well, right?

Yes.

Which means Ajax is not a universally appliable solution....At least 
not yet.

Ajax also need decent css-support for  drag/drop etc. its not only 
quick downloads, the browser mustbe good enough to allow a "native 
app".

(although java made that possible for years, and the fatness of a 
comparable ajax-browser is the same)

There are three aspects that make Ajax apps compelling: 1) distribution 
is easy, with no installation, one click away from any web site; 
2) the environment is consistent, rich and predictable; 3) Remotely 
accessible, one does not have to own a computer, or even have disk 
access,  to resume using an app (classic example, using a library 
to use a web mail app).

Of course there are glaring drawbacks, but they don't matter enough. 
 Widgets (read Reblets) do have a niche -- eg. Apple's Dashboard 
is a far better experience than Windows Live and its ilk -- but we're 
not in that space, Reblets are still too tricky to deploy...

Javeline DeskRun: Run Ajax Apps as Native Windows Programs
http://www.javeline.org/modules/products/deskrun.php

http://www.yahoo.com/preview-- imo. this is an Ajaxian nightmare: 
spaghetti code, slow response, over-designed (but then Yahoo! has 
never been noted for their design restraint).

standard Windows user type designing,  bad layout, bad looks, cramped, 
and very inconsistent with itself in the first look!

an example to be site in courses about how NOT to design a UI.

oops:   site == cited

For all Yahoo!'s talk about web UI patterns and best practise, I 
still required User Agent Spoofing (through Camitools) to get it 
working...

http://thedailywtf.com/forums/70666/ShowPost.aspx:-)

http://blog.kevinhoyt.org/2007/05/21/file-upload-with-apollo-and-javascript/

Exhibit seems a very interesting light weight JS framework.

Does anyone has a good overview about current Ajax frameworks and 
pros/cons about these?

From what I tried (not much) I prefere jQuery

And using this site you can compare, how much the frameworks use 
the global variables (the less is better I think) http://mankz.com/code/GlobalCheck.htm

Robert - Microsoft.cz guys visited me last month, and we talked about 
some 2 - 3 years future, about SharePoint portal. They told me one 
thing towards AJAX - MS is going to adopt jquery, without any changes. 
But of course, I would not consider it being set-in-stone. So maybe 
a jquery?

Ok, will take a look at it.

Why would they adopt jQuery as opposed to push Silverlight?

I think they'll  use jQuery to instantiate Silverlight controls.

Maybe.

So as to push Silverlight, e.g. http://malsup.com/jquery/ag/

Not everyone can or will install Silverlight, and not every site 
can insist that their customers do so. MS developer tools division 
tries to support whatever their developers want to do on MS development 
platforms like ASP.NET. AJAX needs JS frameworks.

So they adopted JQuery *and* push Silverlight where they can, even 
if that means supporting the Moonlight project like they did for 
the inauguration stream. I think that Silverlight has more potential 
than Flash, but I am not Flash's target market :)

Flash UI libraries are getting pretty good, check this http://www.splashup.com/

I don't think that Silverlight has more potential than Flash. From 
what I've seen, Flash is still much more better. And you have IDEs 
to make graphics for Flash which almost every designer is using now. 
I've dowloaded one MS tool to try to make Silverlight graphic app 
(to test if it would be possible to make a Silverlight version of 
the game we are making in Flash) and I must say, that I have a problems 
to use it. I cannot imagine how not programmers can use it.

I'm with Oldes.  I still think that Flash is far better than Silverlight.

I don't know which is better, or which will win, but both systems 
are not the best or desired final design in my opionion.


We need a completely open/free base that is a webased standard all 
devices can and do support by default.

But early attempts strand so far. Anybody remmeber SMIL? More recently, 
SVG? Or..?

SVG though I think of as ONLY 2D vector stuff.  No?

Why don't we just take PS, and simply move what NeXT did over to 
the web 15 years ago?
Worked well there.

I think that Flash is *currently* better than Silverlight, but Silverlight 
has more *potential* because of the system model and such. It would 
be relatively easy to change the tools around Silverlight and add 
new capabilities to it, but it would be hard to change the entire 
semanitc model and system structure of Flash without breaking all 
Flash code in existence. That is what I mean about more potential.

I was amazed at how well video runs in Silverlight on my Mac. But 
I'd still like to see a separation of video from Flash to get a simpler 
and truly optimized video player.

I'd like to see HTML5 video, and not use Flash or Silverlight for 
video at all.

The ability for either Flash or Silverlight to improve in an open/free 
way, in the areas where they are currently strong - multimedia and 
video - is very limited because of all of the patents on multimedia 
codecs. In other ways, Silverlight has more potentiial right now 
for open/free development because MS actually provides developer 
support to the Mono/Moonlight project.

Of course most people wouldn't let Flash or Silverlight run in their 
browser at all if it wasn't for video sites like YouTube.

with HTML5, would the browser itself provide the video player?

iecanvas.... canvas.... build a UI in the new JS engines on that.... 
let anyone in the game. Dump the schizophrenic CSS + DIV + JS.   
http://ibolmo.com/projects/moocanvas/

Check the demos on that one. 3D cube is nice. And this works cross 
browser...

Now write a VID to that....

With Silverlight is a problem,that maybe it may be used for simple 
GUIs, but not for animations. Here are SWF and XAML versions to compare 
http://theconverted.ca/demo.html

But maybe the XAMLs above are so pure because Silvelight has big 
problems with compatibily between its versions.

what is iecanvas? plain html?

great... another way to eat tons of CPU with "simple" demos. :-)