11 what's happened to ala?

I used to look forward to the weekly updates, there’d always be some new interesting techniques to digest.
That hasn’t happened since September 26 2005. every issue since then may has well have been titled “don’t forget to breathe” or “looks like rain… best take an umbrella” – common sense stuff that doesn’t really need 500 odd words written about it!

bring back the juicy tech stuff!

posted at 10:50 am on January 17, 2006 by ban jax

12 AJAX, a fancy name for "javascript for intermediat

Seriously, it’s just javascript. The only real difference being that it’s slightly more complicated than simple form checks.

Get off the high horses already, they are dead anyway. AJAX is just a name to describe something that is merely a feature.

By overhyping this “feature” all you create is unnecessary use of javascript on websites.

Web 3.0? Not even close. Web 1.0 public beta 3 is more like it.

posted at 10:52 am on January 17, 2006 by M. Hageman

13 Wireframing is a bitch?

Yeah, wireframing an AJAX app is a bitch… as long as you are thinking of it as a web page. If you think of it as what it is — an application — you design it as you would any GUI application. That’s not so hard.

Frankly, I think there is about as much anti-hype on this subject as there is hype. That is to say, there are as many people condemning this stuff out of hand as there are claiming it’s the next big thing. Not that this is new — really it’s just the old “when I was a kid we did things better” syndrome. But there really is great stuff being done with this technology, and it will get better still. I, for one, can hardly imagine living without Google Maps anymore.

Saying that people can really screw things up with AJAX is pretty silly. People can screw things up with HTML. People can screw things up with construction paper and scissors. AJAX is just a tool — some people will do great things and some people will saw off their fingers. But you can’t blame the tool. We’re talking about human nature here.

posted at 10:53 am on January 17, 2006 by Fletcher Moore

14 Untitled

When all of the VCs and big clients involved realise that all the spiel they’ve been getting from developers/designers (who, frankly, should know better) is a load of hot air with very little deliverable…

There’s nothing really complex behind all this. If they can’t figure that out for themselves, perhaps they deserve to get hosed.

posted at 10:56 am on January 17, 2006 by Ed O'Loughlin

15 Cold Hard Reality

Wow,

When I was young and running a web agency as a nobody, I thought that these companies around me must know something I didn’t because from what I could see they consisted of nothing but hot air. Soon they were gone, and I realised that I did know something they didn’t, or perhaps I was merely only being honest.

I’ve felt the same akwardness around the whole Web 2.0 bandwagon, some top people that I respect touting the next big thing, usually because their mortgages and world speaking tours relied on it. I wondered if they were seeing something amazing that I was to stupid to grasp, but now I think I realise again, that perhaps I’m not being stupid.

Mr Zeldman, thanks for a great, enlightning reality check. Your quote about a dime-a-dozen Web 2.0 Social App development is gold. ;)

Note to Everett Lindsay: Web technologies are not on/off switches to be adopted and/or thrown away at the whim of a book or article you have read. They form a selection of tools that may or may not be appropriate to the task at hand. Reading ‘Designing With Web Standards’ didn’t make me (and shouldn’t make you) stop using Flash altogether, it should just cause you to stop and think about when it is an appropriate tool or not. As you learn about AJAX you will too learn that it can be used in a useful manner in many situations. :)

posted at 10:57 am on January 17, 2006 by Ross Howard

16 Untitled

I don’t understand why people have such a distaste for all things labeled ‘Web 2.0.’ I’m not a fan of buzzwords, and there’s nothing I hate more than a middle manager with a head full of technologies he knows nothing about. But let’s forget about all that and think about what it is we are trying to accomplish. I don’t know about you, but I would like to make better web sites. Web sites with better usability.

Let’s face it, Tim Berners-Lee never fathomed the web would be used the way we use it today. The HTML protocol was just not made to support rich e-mail clients that check our spelling as we type, or maps that allow us to drag them around transparently gathering information from the server in the background without refreshing the page. I don’t see how anybody could disagree with the fact that these features enhance a user’s experience on the web, and they would simply not be possible without AJAX or some other still undiscovered technology.

The sooner we stop complaining about people improperly using ‘Web 2.0’ buzzwords and start thinking about what this technology gives us as web developers and how we can embrace it and enhance it, the better off we will be, and the better off the users of our sites will be.

posted at 11:02 am on January 17, 2006 by Joe Stelmach

17 sad but true

I really liked this article, especially since it isn’t just related to web design/development. I’m afraid it’s a universal truth that “the people” and especially managers love buzz words and hypes.

It’s just like music these days. People hear some crap that’s new and hyped, and thus they love it. More often than not, they actually think they’re really into this “new” music genre (which has probably been going on for years and years), while in fact they ain’t heard nothing yet (can you tell I love underground music? ;)).

It’s not that I particularly hate popular music, I just can’t stand the reasons people feel attracted to it. And just like web design, they might just hate it tomorrow. I suspect people’s brains just keep getting flatter or something, they don’t like to really investigate what it is they choose.

Well, what can we do but scream and rant and swear and smash our heads against the wall and… O, wait, we could of course let go and breathe out for a moment (OK, I admit, I’m still struggling with that one every once in a while :)).

posted at 11:09 am on January 17, 2006 by Robin van Riel

18 Pyramid Scheme...

The whole web 2.0 – ruby on rails – ajax crappola strikes me as a pyramid scheme. I hate quoting slashdot, but this time it may be appropriate:

1. Write a web framework in an obscure programming language that’s “Big In Japan”
2. ?
3. Profit!!!

Seems like step 2 has been figured out…either write a book about Ruby / Ajax / Web 2.0, or get bought by Yahoo or Google.

Once you work your way up to the top of the pyramid, you get to write a book about Ruby or Ajax, and everybody below you must buy it. Later, it will be their turn. The whole scheme depends on recruiting new people to the pyramid.

posted at 11:19 am on January 17, 2006 by Anony Mouse

19 Nothing new in web 2.0

Let’s face it, Tim Berners-Lee never fathomed the web would be used the way we use it today.

Actually, he did. Back in 1998. He called it the ‘semantic web’:

http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Semantic.html

Im more of a Java developer than a web designer… and Ive been using ‘AJAX’ for five years now. Of course, back in those days it was just called ‘Remote Scripting’:

http://developer.apple.com/internet/webcontent/iframe.html

My beef with Web 2.0? Its just Web 1.0. There is NOTHING NEW HERE. Only that people are finally making JavaScript libraries so the hard DHTML and AJAX stuff isn’t so hard anymore. Good, certainly. Worthy of the name? No.

I say cut the hype, BS, and infighting, and lets get people behind a ‘JavaScript Standard Library’ once and for all.

posted at 11:42 am on January 17, 2006 by Brian Huff

20 AJAX: It's the latency stupid

To me the main issue with AJAX is not accessibility – it’s the “asychronous” part that’s the real issue and to my mind, no one has solved yet.

It’s largely a skills problem – AJAX takes applications into a realm where you’d normally want stuff like MQSeries to help out, and that’s an area where most web developers have little to no experience, or even awareness. Another issue is people developing AJAX apps @localhost.

People are just starting to notice that there could be a problem though…

Rapid Ajax requests out of order

XMLHTTP notes

“The problem, obviously, is that a user may type so fast, and/or the server may be so slow, that one request overtakes another. User types second number, request goes out, but before it comes back he types the third number, and another request goes out etc.”

Latency may or may not be a problem your particular AJAX feature needs to be worried about but it’s a big “it depends”. Looking at many “Thankyou note” type AJAX demos suggests that for the most part no ones even thinking about it. Worse still is some of the popular AJAX “toolkits” out there will take people right into this trap. A rare exception is Live Grid – if you look deep into the code you see they’re being careful to check the order they got responses in – this wasn’t handled by their AJAX toolkit.

And it’s worth understanding that cable modems don’t magically make this problem disappear – see It’s the Latency, Stupid

posted at 12:01 pm on January 17, 2006 by Harry Fuecks

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