Software As She’s Developed

Working (offline) on Richer Plugin, I’ve expanded the list of reasons you’d want to use a Richer Plugin, i.e. Flash, Java Applets, Standalone clients, Firefox extensions etc. Here’s the list of things Ajax can’t do on it’s own - what else is there? Browser morphing Adding buttons, toolbars, bookmarks, icons; changing browser behaviour. Local file access Reading and […]

[Read more →]

Abe Fettig’s done some important experimenting to arrive at a direct remoting technique, one which bypasses the need for a Cross-Domain Proxy and doesn’t rely on cross-domain On-Demand Javascript. Compared to the latter technique, Abe’s idea is more functional, because you get the power, expressivity, and bidirectional capability of XMLHttpRequest, as opposed to the On-Demand […]

[Read more →]

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve joined Dion, Ben, and Rob as an Ajaxian.com editor. Here’s Dion’s announcement: We are proud to announce that Michael Mahemoff of the popular AjaxPatterns.org has joined the Ajaxian.com team. Together, Ajaxian.com and Ajax Patterns is going to offer even more information for users of Ajax technology. Expect to see […]

[Read more →]

Cool! The Best Practices/Processes Patterns are now complete. They are the final eight Ajax Patterns for now - “final” in the sense of “the list is not yet finalised”. The patterns had been sitting there unattended for about four months now. More details on the new patterns later, but here’s a quick summary … First, there’s a […]

[Read more →]

If Ajax apps are to be rich, there must be a way for the server to pass new information to the browser. For example, new stock quotes or an instant message someone else just sent you. But the browser’s not a server, so the server can’t initiate an HTTP connection to alert the browser. The […]

[Read more →]

Ajax Basics 2 of 3 This is the second of three podcasts on the basic Ajax patterns. Podcast 1: Display Patterns and the DOM. Podcast 2: Web Remoting - XMLHttpRequest, IFrame Call, HTTP Streaming. Podcast 3: Dynamic Behaviour - Events and Timing. Podcast 2: Web Remoting (XMLHttpRequest, IFrame, HTTP Streaming) This 75 minute podcast covers web remoting concepts and the […]

[Read more →]

“A Mock Is Not So Stupid After All!” Dave Crane’s been talking about Mocking the Server-Side: A Mock Object is a stand-in for the real thing. Few modern programs are really standalone, and enterprise apps require a very complex context in order to operate; containers, databases, directories, web services, etc. This can make testing difficult, […]

[Read more →]

This 47-minute podcast is a discussion with Alexander Kirk, creator of the recently released Blummy (which I mentioned last week) and also Bandnews. A few things we discussed: The design behind Blummy. (Interestingly, I was incorrect to guess it uses XHR - basically, the Blummy is like a Greasemonkey script - it uses DOM manipulation to alter […]

[Read more →]

The Basics of Ajax: A 3-Part Podcast Series I’m beginning to podcast about specific Ajax patterns. To start with, a three-part series on the basics of Ajax development, covering all the Foundational Technologies patterns: Podcast 1: Display Patterns and the DOM. Podcast 2: Web Remoting - XMLHttpRequest, IFrame Call, HTTP Streaming. Podcast 3: Dynamic Behaviour - Events and Timing. These […]

[Read more →]

I just updated the ajaxpatterns.org “What’s Ajax” page to include more info on Ajax Benefits, and added a new section on Downsides. Have I missed any? Benefits of Ajax Web as a Platform: The web is no longer just about websites that expose some information; it’s increasingly being used for full-blown applications. These applications demand richer […]

[Read more →]