AJAX vs Flash for Rich Interfaces
This is an interesting article on how AJAX is developing for rich internet applications. AJAX gives browser users more intereactivity, such as drag-and-drop functionality, without making server side call (page refreshes). The big web applications companies, such as Salesforce.com must be looking very closely at how AJAX can speed up their application responsiveness.
Macromedia put in their 2 cents worth: Flash upgrades hit 80% penetration in 12 months; IE 6 took 6 years to get to 80% desktop penetration. I think this glosses over that things have changed dramatically since the IE5 to IE6 upgrade. Automatic updates of software are much more common: IE7 has reached a 25% market share in just 3 months.
AJAX is not new its just a new way of combining existing technologies: javascript, css, xml, and xmlhttprequest.
http://internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3527226
The standard introduction to AJAX is here at Adaptive Path.
Commercial IDE for AJAX with some great demonstrations at Backbase
Some interesting basic examples of AJAX - focussed on the UI side eg. drag-and-drop
However the upcoming release of Apollo environment from Adobe may have a real impact. Apollo promises a set of AJAX libraries, plus other programming goodies such as an IDE. If Adobe can ensure that the Apollo environment is somehow bundled with Flash, they will be able to seize the de facto standard for AJAX. This has implications not just for the current open source AJAX libraries but also Microsofts .Net environment. There is more information about Apollo at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/apollo/
Categories: CMS integration,Javascript and AJAX,Code bits,Flash stuffWrite a comment
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