I had an interesting conversation today with Keith Smith from the Atlas project at Microsoft and I recently talked to Andre Charland and Dave Johnson of eBusiness Applications (they are doing some amazing things with Ajax) . If you've read my posts, you know that I'm not really big on using Ajax to build applications. I think it's a good technology and that it adds a lot to the experience, but building applications with it limits that application to the confines and rules of the browser. In this day and age, those are simply too limiting for the kinds of experiences that we can deliver.
I had an interesting conversation today with Keith Smith from the Atlas project at Microsoft and I recently talked to Andre Charland and Dave Johnson of eBusiness Applications (they are doing some amazing things with Ajax) . If you've read my posts, you know that I'm not really big on using Ajax to build applications. I think it's a good technology and that it adds a lot to the experience, but building applications with it limits that application to the confines and rules of the browser. In this day and age, those are simply too limiting for the kinds of experiences that we can deliver.
However Atlas is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, because there may be some Atlas and WFP integration down the road. Keith was very clear that the two teams haven't talked and nothing is planned right now, but he did say that he was always looking for products within Microsoft that would help Atlas. WPF would undoubtedly be one of those products, especially with XBAP applications that are meant to run inside the browser. The other reason it is interesting is because it's fully cross platform, and they plan to keep it that way for the foreseeable future. While Microsoft does have Office for the Mac and they have developed applications for other platforms, they tend to not be well supported. Ajax by its very nature is cross platform, and Microsoft seems to have embraced it with Atlas so it will be very interesting to see how they treat Ajax moving forward.
The other thing that got me thinking about Ajax today was a post by Matt Miller titled Too Much Ajax. Matt had an interesting quote about sites that use too much Ajax breaking the way the browser operated. I've always felt that the browser model is outdated. It was conceived in an era when usability was the last thing on people's minds. It's an antiquated system which is why web applications running in a browser is a recipe for disaster. But when pages use Ajax within the browser, for simple things that enhance the experience and make the flow more natural, then it's very impressive. It rejuvenates the browser model and in many ways humanizes it.
I still don't believe in Ajax as a web application tool. The browser was never meant to handle applications, and we shouldn't be limiting functionality to fit within the browser's restrictiveness. But it does make the web a better place, and for that, I'm glad.
