got ajax?
Topic: code, general|Is AJAX for real? Is it really the next web revolution? More importantly, can it dethrone desktop apps as the defacto standard for rich user experience? I say a vehement YES to all three questions!
Traditionally, web apps are known as “thin-client” apps and desktop apps are the “thick-client”. Now, the fight is on for who will be the “smart-client” - an app that can provide a rich user-experience without the need for installing a gig of binaries. I’m sure you were as amazed by Google Maps as I was. How can a thin-client app achieve something so cool and thick-client like MSFT Encarta did not? How about GMail vs Outlook? Well, jokes about “who is smarter” aside, such coolness was deemed improbable on the web. With AJAX now a reality, you will see a wave of such coolsmart-client apps.
AJAX is the next webolution. MSFT is in a cluster-fuck right now. Invest more in the Avalon desktop to fight the webolution and giveup on IE ? Or invest in IE to join the webolution and lose the desktop supremacy? It is also ironic that XMLHttpRequest (the underlying technology of AJAX) was first introduced by MSFT!
Smart-client apps will replace the thick apps. AJAX will cleanup your desktop. The desktop will eventually consist of just a browser.
Now, about that name…AJAX? Can we get a better name for something that is about to change the world…