An Impassioned Defense of Ajax from Kevin Hoyt

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It’s a separate topic, but somehow I think that with the news of Firefox 3 shipping it’s first beta, Kevin Hoyt’s post on Ajax is very appropriate. Kevin is responding to a post by Richard Leggett in which Richard says Ajax is dead. He cites some good examples. Those that have read this blog for awhile know I’m not the biggest Ajax fan (by far) but seeing how people are using it inside of AIR has been cool. Frankly I’ve come down off of my fan-boi pedestal and I realize that a lot of people out there are doing cool things with Ajax. It’s also an important part of browsers and will continue to be important as both browsers and web development evolve.

So Kevin’s response was great and is well worth a read. If you think that Adobe is moving full speed ahead with Flash and doesn’t care about Ajax then hopefully after reading you’ll see that isn’t the case. Adobe is a web company and we support web development in any capacity. The Flash and Ajax crowds have a lot to learn from each other and I think we’ll see some great times ahead as the communities start to work together. Kevin and his attitude will be a big part of that bridge going forward.

[tags]Kevin Hoyt, Ajax, Flash, Firefox[/tags]

Related posts:

  1. Kevin Lynch on Ajaxian’s Audible Ajax Podcast
  2. Ryan Goes to Ajax Training
  3. Adobe and Ajax
  4. Kevin Lynch is “The Flash”
  5. Adobe and Ajax Development Tools

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  • http://www.ommgadget.com Kyocera

    I am not a big fun of this game but I think it is very interesting

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  • http://www.tink.ws/blog Tink

    “Kevin is responding to a post by Richard Leggett in which Richard says Ajax is dead”

    Not sure Richard actually stated at any point that Ajax was dead. Bit of a mis-quote that.

  • http://www.richardleggett.co.uk Richard Leggett

    I certainly didn’t! ;) The realist in me knows that AJAX is going to hang around and of course there will be improvement to some extent. I think the point I was discussing is that the “platform” it is built upon isn’t evolving fast enough for various reasons, and all of the “prescribed specs” (as JD accurately puts it) that will in future allow it to do more, are a long way off, with no gaurentees they come at all. Even if we do see Canvas3D and some standard format media tag in HTML5, it’s all a bit too little too late in my eyes (what will this media format be in IE or Safari that will be widely adopted?). I was genuinely suprised by Kevin’s post as an Adobe employee with regard to the comments on Flash and Flash Lite in particular but I understand the extra need to show support for AJAX developers with regards to AIR, so it makes sense.

    The last paragraph however I cannot agree more with, thankfully Adobe are providing tools for everyone to use no matter what their view on things.

  • Frank

    I think the thing we miss in these RIA discussions is the fact that the RIA platform is limited by the capabilities on the client platform. I would agree that AJAX is not dead. Software takes a long time to die. However, in it’s current state and compared to the other RIA platforms today AJAX will face a decreasing adoption rate.

  • http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com Steve Ballmer

    You have got to be kidding! Ajax is good for a few stains but will never replace dawn!
    Just kidding, I’m real funny like that.

    http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

  • http://www.tareeinternet.com Carly

    It’s great to hear Adobe does have somewhat of an interest in Ajax and it’s development.

    Although i strongly disagree it’s dead, Ajax is a tool that has it’s uses and when used appropriately (not just inside AIR) it’s very effective.

    Thanks for the tidbit about Adobe and Ajax.

    Carly,