Charlie, my main issues with AJAX are dealing with cross-browser issues, and
security.
AJAX exposes some of the most annoying cross-browser DHTML sort of things.
Using libraries and frameworks can insulate you from that to a degree, but
not always completely. I've got a customer doing things with Google Maps and
we've had some differences between IE and FF that have been difficult to
solve.
People have gotten so excited about using AJAX that they have forgotten
basic security principles (things like validating input). I recently read an
article that discussed the security holes in the more commonly used
frameworks, so the issue isn't just with roll your own AJAX, it is more
pervasive.
But, those things said, ultimately I think it is a step forward in making a
richer browser experience (not as much as Flex though). There are just some
fleas on the dog that folks should be aware of in advance.
----- Original Message ----
From: Charlie Arehart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, February 8, 2008 10:58:47 AM
Subject: [ACFUG Discuss] will Ajax go away (was JVM version and ColdFusion)
That seems a curious statement, Forrest, and I'm sure some would enjoy a
bit of discussion on it. For those who weren't following closely, he had
asked first about some challenges using a CFX_google custom tag, and in the
replies he was told that it's quite old and instead Google favors some Ajax
APIs instead. Forrest replies he hoped the "Ajax thing would just go away".
So, do you realize that Ajax is merely a way to make browsers smarter? It
enables them to make calls to remote servers. Sure, we could do that in the
past with Java applets, ActiveX controls, Flash, and even plain Javascript.
And we could of course do it from the server using either REST or SOAP apis.
Ajax is just a simplified API to enable that very javascript-based
client-server interaction. For those who need to talk to servers from
clients (either because they can't or don't want to involve a server to
proxy the communications for them), we don't want them to go back to Java
and ActiveX, do we? :-) And while we may wish everyone would use Flex, it's
just not likely. Many will, for the much larger problem space it solves, but
for the average web developer, it's not really as simple as dropping in some
AJAX API calls.
If Google (or other vendors) want to create a way for people to connect, and
they want to make it work regardless of what web app server platform people
use (and as well for those who have no server), and they provide an
Ajax-based API to what (I suppose are otherwise REST-based) services, that's
seems to be just being smart, widening the pool of possible users.
Look at it another way (for us CFers), they (like Amazon, Ebay, and others)
could instead just document calling from Java, ASP.NET, and PHP. They tend
to not go that one step further to include CF. At least by their offering a
platform-agnostic solution that doesn't require any server-side processing,
they've helped more than just those who have no server to make calls from.
Just some thoughts. I'm not fanatical about all this, and I may well myself
be missing a point. But since this is the ACFUG "discussion" list, that
comment seemed one worth discussing. :-)
/charlie
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Forrest C.
Gilmore
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 5:30 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [ACFUG Discuss] JVM version and ColdFusion
Thanks, Charlie. Your comments were very helpful!
I have been hoping that this AJAX thing would just go away, as it seems to
be to be a step backwards, but it looks like it will be around a while
longer!
Forrest C. Gilmore
========================
Charlie Arehart wrote:
Forrest, I realize you've perhaps abandoned the effort, but I'll throw
out some clarification if it's useful, first about the JRE/CFX issue,
then about calling the google search APIs.
<snip>
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