AJAX development resources

[Buffy]

I'm starting to dabble in AJAX. Anyone here doing much with it? I'm trying to locate everybody's favorite "web resources" for it: good sites with info, tools, etc.

Jump right in!

Cheers,
Buffy

[geokker]

I was initially interested, but am put off by its lack of accessibility. Also, while I get excited with XML (especially SVG), Java makes me ill. Sun Microsystems makes me ill - just look at the utter, complete dog that is Open Office.

I like Google maps but think it could be better implemented in SVG - controversial I know.

Google Suggest - can't see what the big deal is there + I can't see the benefit.

I think developers should concentrate on better usability and general design of CSS and HTML implementations before moving onto gee-whizz AJAX shenanigans.

It sort of reminds me of Flash 'enabled' sites - neat, but usually hampers access to information.

[alexander]

why does google use java? simple because they dont all program in java and use better languages for their products. need i remind you of jython?

[Buffy]

I actually don't like AJAX's approach much either, mostly because its only conceptual, and there's no "standard" there other than in-place browser XML txns that can only exist because there's one fairly stably implemented javascript object that does it. The folks who think this is "new" don't know what they're talking about.

OTOH, AJAX seems to be gaining some popularity, and due to the fact that we must live with these brain damaged thin clients called browsers (anyone old enough to remember X-server workstations? Light years beyond browsers...), its *something* that definitely helps both response time and "smart" client behavior. Javascript programming is totally sucky, and I hate it, but what I'm looking for here is if opinions on some of the layered js libraries built on the AJAX model that are starting to creep out.

So, *bump* opinions? Biases? Faves? Don't tell me *no* one here has anything to say about it....

Cheers,
Buffy

[coldhead]

Have a look at Ruby on Rails, has AJAX built-in.
comes with a ruby web-server will also run on Apache and fastcgi.

[alexander]

lol, you've been reading this month's Linux Journal, i can tell, its not like its a bad thing

AJAX, since our last discussion of it has progressed, and although i dont like the language of choice, i do appreciate what google did with it. I mean, they built an online text editor that has spellchecking and all kinds of other crazy stuff. Google is definitely up on all of their AJAX stuff, i still prefer Python to Java, and i wont learn Jave till they open-source it, but hey whatever drives your wagon right?

[Buffy]

Of course I'm evil. I'm writing Ajax in .Net.... Sorry, have to because of our code base, until we re-write it from scratch....

Ruby is interesting but its also idiocyncratic and its a dangerous UI/API lock-in at this point. If I had my choice I'd prolly follow alex and write python with jython (am I kidding? you decide! ) to make the raw AJAX calls... Still lookin for more resources, hopefully several abstractions lower than Ruby...

Cheers,
Buffy

[rockytriton]

I never heard of AJAX, guess I'll look into it. Google uses java? All the job postings I've seen for them are for C and C++ engineers. Ruby is a really cool OO script language, I like it better than python just because I can't see myself using a language that uses whitespace as a part of its syntax.

[alexander]

there is a reason python is white pace sensitive, and you can read all about it on python's website! its not bad, if you use a decent editor or a plugin for one to do auto white spacing, i have absoltely no problems with whitespace (emacs with a little color-customized python mode, but the "engine" worksvery well).
Ruby is a cool language, not as popular as python but nontheless cool. BTW python is a big plus on applications to Sun and Google, they do develop a lot in java, they also develop a lot in python, mainly use C++ for their big projects, but python programmers tend to fromat their code better because it is white space sensitive

[rockytriton]

yea, I don't need the language to tell me how to format, I format well anyway. Good thing I'm not thinking of joining Google or Sun I guess, I wouldn't want to do python or ruby even for a living. Then again, I hate my current job so maybe I should learn python and do something new.