Software As She’s Developed

… a blog entry in which I define the term “proving”. I’m defining it here because I needed to link to a definition and couldn’t find a suitable URL to point to. A few years ago, we were in a meeting when an architect explained to the project manager “we’ll be spending the first few weeks […]

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James Strachan: Is Ajax gonna kill the web frameworks?: So is the web application of the future going to be static HTML & JavaScript, served up by Apache with Ajax interacting with a bunch of XML based web services (maybe using SOAP, maybe just REST etc)? If so, do we really need a web […]

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Looking at the best practice/process patterns gave me some ideas for Ajax frameworks. Here’s a few thoughts. I know some frameworks already do some of these things, though most don’t, and none do all of them. Logging frameworks should provide a sensible default, ie log to a div, but allow for more flexiblity on the logging strategy, as […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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“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, […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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Check out Alexander Kirk’s new website: Blummy. A blummy is a kind of bookmarklet that opens up a kind of pop-up portal, giving you access to various web services. Just like a portal is made up of Portlets, a Blummy is made of Blummlets, which essentially do the kind of things bookmarklets do. e.g. […]

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