Stop AJAX!

Guys, enough is enough

[aleksl]

Folks, this is partly a joke, partly an outcry.

PLEASE STOP DEVELOPING APPS IN AJAX!

Don't want to upgrade my PCs anymore. A perfectly fine laptop is now crashing on 50% of websites, including GMail. This is gotta stop! If you can't develop, and don't know how to build proper Javascript for older PCs - STAY AWAY FROM IT!

SAY NO TO WEB 2.0

:-)

maybe we out to certify in AJAX before a webmaster is allowed to use it.

[digitalghost]

>>including GMail

They've really ruined Gmail, but there is a link to the "Older Version" which works much better and much, much faster. The "new, improved" version is a wreck.

Don't look for the AJAX onslaught to end any time soon though. Remember when every damn button on the web seemed to be made with Flash?

[aleksl]

digitalghost, tried that "HTML" link. After gmail and google maps you are done - anything 3rd and browser just locks up.

eBay Motors is the worst, Firefox just simply crashes on 2 out of 3 PCs. I talked to them when they were in Beta, their response was "what crash?".

Tried Yahoo Movies lately on a non-64-bit, or a non-dual CPU PC? Done, dead, just horrible load times.

I WANT MY PRE-BUBBLE-2.0 INTERNET BACK!

[Swanny007]

AJAX isn't nearly as bad as Flash, but geez it's not that far off. I don't like whiz-bang sites, I like fast, functional sites with no fluff! I'm impatient so get to the point, I don't need gimmicks. LOL

Can you tell I'm a bit anti-web-2.0?

[GaryK]

I think the worst part about these AJAX sites is the absurd amount of JS that has to be loaded. Take Digg for example. Twelve external JS files totaling 260KB on the home page!

[netchicken1]

You can tell Digg is full of bloat, I have to hit the Back button 3 times just to go back one screen.

[mehh]

I think "Use AJAX Correctly!", would be a better title. Why should I make my site worse for all users because of the minorety. Progressive enhancement people!

[aleksl]

Why should I make my site worse for all users because of the minority

I'll explain.

Because best practices of User Interface design require so.

Because if you think this feature looks" cool", swell, sweat, snappy, dashboardy, whatever - you must ask a question "can this UI work without this Javascript-bloated feature". And if the answer is "yes" - it is just a "cool" but USELESS feature that needs to be parted with.

Unless it is a "collaboration" i.e. Myspace-type website...and even then, if you are alienating 20% of your users that will not come back EVER. You'll get bad word of mouth pablicity too.

And there's more reasons - if some of your visitors come from outside U.S. (and maybe a few other high-bandwidth countries like Japan, U.K.) you are toast.

Don't get me wrong, I am not against 50 lines of Javasctipt - go ahead and use it. I am against 260Kb that loads on every freakin' page request. You know what? Your AJAX - and your AdSense ads, incidentally - just's been blocked by my browser.

[mehh]

I am against 260Kb that loads on every freakin' page request.

Who isn't? The chances are that library is either poorly coded (most likely as the programmer hasn't enabled caching) or poorly organised. The librarys I use are all under 4kb and there are 4 of them. One I only use in development to debug, and one I've never needed. My AJAX libray is 2.8kb with compression it's about 1.8kb, is there any logical reason why I shouldn't use that rather then refreshing the whole page which may be 1kb of template markup. 2 refreshes later, the AJAX is ahead.

[rocknbil]

eBay Motors is the worst

Although I've never had a crash, I'll agree on this one - we stopped selling in eBay over a year ago simply because their new Ajax interface made my blood pressure rise 10 points every time I had to post an auction. With it enabled, any edits you make get all the white space removed and it's nearly impossible to use if you create your own HTML.

eBay is *officially* the only site that, if I have to use it, I turn off Javascript. At least then it's usable - but some of the buttons no longer work. LOL . . .