After downplaying the importance of the emerging Ajax programming model, Microsoft Corp. has decided to jump with booth feet into the Ajax fray. On Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled “Atlas,” a Web client framework that is designed to support multiple DHTML controls with JavaScript code.
It will be interesting to see how far Ajax goes. Would be nice if IE7 used the same javascript engine as Gecko. Would make things a lot easier
Microsoft is seeking to “remedy the fact that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist” to figure out how to develop for all facets of the Web, said Charles Fitzgerald, general manager of Microsoft’s platform strategy group.
Is this guy saying that with this development, you will now have to be a rocket scientist to develop for all facets of the web?
“Would be nice if IE7 used the same javascript engine as Gecko. Would make things a lot easier”
Um, not really. There isn’t much to Ajax on the browser side. MS just has to get it easier to work with on the server side.
We’re already using it at the company for web applications (shopping cart, chat software and other stuff).
Nothing really new. I don’t know how MS could turn it into some sort of proprietary framework.
More info here:
http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php
http://www.crockford.com/JSON/
It is funny the way Microsoft always dismisses other companies technology and open source approaches and then a year or two later comes out with a Microsoft version which of course they promote as a ‘better’ way. Ah, you have got to love the Microsoft marketing spin. Around and around it goes. Weee!
I seriously despise MS, couldn’t the retards just follow AJAX rather that peddling proprietary tripe and shoving it down other people’s throats?
-=quote=-
“Would be nice if IE7 used the same javascript engine as Gecko. Would make things a lot easier”
Um, not really. There isn’t much to Ajax on the browser side. MS just has to get it easier to work with on the server side.
-=quote=-
Um, AJAX is ALL browser side. It’s javascript. Where do you do server side java script that actually does things with the server? It’s all processed and executed by the browser.
Javascript + DHTML = Browser Technology
PHP/ASP/JSP/JAVA/et al are all Server Side technologies
Quick, Microsoft! Chase those tails!
This company makes me laugh every week now, the way they’re playing catch-up with absolutely EVERYBODY all at once. Innovation? Yeah, right.
Outlook Web Access – A catalyst for web evolution
http://blogs.technet.com/exchange/archive/2005/06/21/406646.aspx
“XMLHTTP was born and implemented by the OWA dev effort of Shawn Bracewell. Exchange funded the effort by having OWA development build XMLHTTP in partnership with the Webdata team in SQL server.”
I the guys will get into trouble with the name Ajax which is also the name of a Dutch soccer team from Amsterdam.
Don’t be silly: the Dutch soccer team takes the name(*) from the Omeric hero Ajax (Aiace in italian), and I am inclined to think that copyright on texts written more than two thousands years ago would have expired, by now…
* It’s their symbol, actually: the classic profile of Ajax with his helm raised on the brow.
–quote–
Microsoft and some of its backers claim that Microsoft has been doing Ajax-style development for years and had never gotten the credit for it. They point to Outlook Web Access as an example of an Ajax-style application developed by the Redmond software maker.
–quote–
Boo hoo, Microsoft they never got any credit. My God they are pathetic. And I don’t see this model used in Outlook Web Access, otherwise it should be as fast and dynamic as Gmail.
Boo hoo, Microsoft they never got any credit. My God they are pathetic. And I don’t see this model used in Outlook Web Access, otherwise it should be as fast and dynamic as Gmail.
I think indeed they use it, (at least in their IE version of the webmail client), but it seems to be implemented REALLY bad.
It is actually not any faster than using the old fashioned way.
OWA is a buggy piece of software anyway…
Well, this Ajax thing is funny. It was circa year 2000 (or even 1999) when I attempted using MS DHTML to achieve results Ajax framework (more or less) tries to implement.
IE had cool DHTML framework which allowed most of things now everybody is drooling upon now. Then I had to stop because everybody was complaining that it wasn’t a good standard, that they cannot implement… poor Netscape… blablabla
Everything you needed to make cooler websites was there. And, if you look carefully, it’s still there. Somehow, usual people complained it was IE only plus that they didn’t want to implement because it was “bloated” (a word which is mostly used as a replacement for “I don’t even know how the hell they did that so I’m not going to implement, sorry…”)
For years, we had no rich client experience (over a common browser) because of this while we could have Ajax-style development back in 2000.
Now, I think we should appreciate everything we have now because it’s a very complete ecosystem but being unable to admit that IE had this technology something like 5 years ago is… well… no good
Don’t get me wrong: Ajax is cool and useful (but won’t use it, because I’m tired of browsers’ quirks) and MS doesn’t need to be “credited”, they’re a successfull company, after all. But if you stay in this biz long enough, you will surely see funny things.
Ajax it’s just a marketing name for a set of technologies concieved years ago, and the most prominent one, XMLHttp object, has indeed been introduced in IE. The others browser followed only later.
So yes, they deserve all the credit. And i’m a linux/mozilla guy, just to state clear.
Antonio
…as always in everything “Microsoft and some of its backers claim that Microsoft has been doing Ajax-style development for years and had never gotten the credit for it”. Alright, I am not surprised, since MS is always the first in everything indeed. And all this time when we said MS has almost always been a fast [sometimes not even fast] follower we were just plain wrong. They really were the first all the time, just were too shy to come out with it. Poor, poor guys. Let’s just drop to the ground and praise our Redmond overlords.
i thought .NET was supposed to be MS’s main ‘browser as client’ type of technology?
i know .NET does round trips to accomplish stuff and that DHTML is all about the broswer and client side functionality but how would these fit together?
.NET is an handful mix of server and client-side developing. While .NET is mostly a server-side technology, it does support and integrate with client-side in a very strong and straight-forward way. A page can accomplish each task either on client or on server side. Of course, what you can do on client side is usually limited but a .NET page can delegate many tasks to clients, provided that you know how to develop client side scripts using Javascript.
If you don’t want to mess with client-side development (not all developers like that), you can just delegate all of your processing to server-side via roundtrips to server.
.NET itself uses client-side technology, for example for validators controls, which can use a client script to validate values entered or selected by user without requiring a postback.
Hope this helps.
I can’t believe that people are trying to pretend that this is new, or even “recently gaining wide-spread use.” This is not new. This is not revolutionary. People have been doing this for years. The only thing that’s changed is that a couple of people jumped up and stamped a name on it and are implicitly claiming it as their own idea.
I (and several others) have been using XMLHttp via Javascript in 1999 to pass XML back and forth between the server and the client to update interface elements without causing page refresh. That’s what the technology is there for. That’s why everyone doing serious web development for any length of time is sitting back reading this “AJAX” bullshit and saying “WTF?”
Of course all the newer developers that somehow haven’t encountered this before the hype are all running around singing the praises of this wonderful “new” idea.
I guess it’s interesting that they gave it a name. It’d be nice if the name didn’t suck.
The are EMBRACING ajax, and of course adding a little EXTENSION. Probably recommends I.E., soon to be followed by requires I.E., and then we have EXTINGUISH.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMLHttpRequest
“XMLHTTP is an important component in the “AJAX” web development technique.”
“The object was originally invented by Microsoft, used since Internet Explorer 5.0 as an ActiveX object, which is hence accessible via JavaScript, VBScript, or other scripting languages supported by the browser. Mozilla contributors then implemented a compatible native version in Mozilla 1.0. This was later followed by Apple since Safari 1.2 and Opera Software since Opera 8.0.”
Do you all know that Microsoft has been doing AJAX stuff for YEARS now? That they are the ones who make XmlHttpRequest which makes AJAX possible in the first place? IIRC, it was brought out to make browser-based Outlook possible.
Until Atlas is released, how are you all sure that its a priprietary framework?
I suggest you all keep it shut until it’s out, eh? Considering they brought it out, they have every right to go at it.
Is the framework ready to be downloaded and in a final state? I would like to start using it today.
Agra,
The fact that Microsoft is using AJAX and creating a framework around it isn’t the problem. Have you seen IE’s DOM? It’s not ECMA standard. The concern happens to be around the fact that it’s yet another way to go about locking people into using Internet Explorer. Think MSHMTL and CSS, it’s not standardized, hence the hundreds of bank websites that didn’t work with Mozilla over the last 2 years.
If they happen to keep it standard, good for them. I don’t see it happening. Microsoft doesn’t do standards, they do “enhanced standards”…and that creates lockin.
Microsoft invented DHTML and XMLHTTPRequest (which *ARE* AJAX) over half a decade ago. Windows developers have been using both technologies to implement private and sometimes public websites whilst netscape was still struggling to work out how to *NOT* have to reload and rerender a webpage whenever you resize the browser window.