AJAX is a signal of unhealthy?

[foxfox]

Do you think the recent developments of AJAX is an unhealthy signal for web development industry?

so many JS libaries
so difficult to make the codes work with most browsers
so many lines of codes to do just a simple thing!

the web is lacking of a standard, and easy way for web development!

[thaedge]

I actually think its a good thing. It allows those of us that are developers (full or pt) to do things that has been asked of us for so long.

The extra functionality and added usability (when used correctly) makes for better sites and better interaction for users.

imho

[wisley]

In fact, AJAX is not a new things, it's a collection of old things like javascript, html, css and xml, and a little bit new technology only.

Of course, AJAX become a star, it's because of google.

So I don't think AJAX is a signal of unhealthy, just because some webmasters use AJAX to show off themselves only.

And I think AJAX is good! Very Good!

[GOTseo]

ajax will be a a great affect on CPM rates.

[crazyadmin]

The great thing about AJAX is that you can create Flash/Java-like effects in >95% of available browsers without requiring the user to download any browser add-on. It goes without saying that if AJAX wasn't that widely supported then there wouldn't be any hype about it nor would Google use it. In fact, there's a much higher probability that the basic CSS layout of a web page would malfunction than that it would happen to AJAX sections of the same web page...

[superpower]

I think it is unhealthy if you are obsessed with it and lose sight of more important UI/content/marketing factors in making money online.

[crazyadmin]

Of course, like anything else AJAX can be over-used, but it's the web designer's fault not the technology's. IMO web pages over-using CSS stylesheet effects is a much bigger 'problem' than web pages over-using AJAX...

[jtara]

I have to say I lament the demise of frames.

Probably 80% of what AJAX is being used for could be satisfied in a much more simple fashion using frames.

I think where we went wrong was the silly squabble over Iframes. Iframes (introduced by Microsoft) were not an "official" part of any web standard until HTML 4.0. For some reason, they are still thought-of as improper HTML. Iframes addressed most of the clunkiness issues with frames.

Unfortunately, Iframes are NOT an official part of XHTML! (Although browsers still support them.)

What SHOULD have happened is that a mechanism should have been added to allow the target of a link to be a <div> or <span> within the current page. Some very basic AJAX support that doesn't require Javascript should have come along with CSS.

While fancy expanding menus are nice, they aren't essential. The biggest bang-for-the-buck from any AJAX technique is the ability to update just a region of the page, rather than the entire page. That it requires any Javascript at all in order to do this is just plain silly.

What we needed (and still need) is a more-flexible implementation of Iframe. It seems to me that <div> and <span> could meet that need nicely.

[jtara]

Substitute AJAX-like for AJAX above.

Obviously, there no XML, no "asynchronous", and no Javascript. Which eliminates all the letters of the acronym, but, happily, all of the complexity as well.

To the end-user it would offer the same experience, though, for those use cases which involve simply updating a block of text from the server when the user presses a button.

[superpower]

I agree that iframes are often overlooked.

I'm working on a project right now where I had to decide between ajax and iframes. Iframes did everything I wanted (so far at least) in a few lines of code, as opposed to what would have been some bloated ajax js overhead.