« Lenovo, Adobe Elements | Main | "Internet 2.0" »
August 20, 2006
AJAXWorld conference
AJAXWorld conference: SYS-CON will hold a one-day "bootcamp" for modern JavaScript, alongside two days of vendor/pundit presentations, this October in Santa Clara. Dion Hinchcliffe will be leading the bootcamp. I agree with this line from the description: "'AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 2006' recognizes that, while on the one hand Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) as a category is wider and broader than just AJAX, on the other it is indisputably AJAX that has acted as the tipping point" -- once JavaScript specialists felt enabled, their initial resistance to RIAs dissipated, and conversation flourished. But I don't really agree with this part: "Burton Group defines 'Rich' Internet Applications as those that offer functionality beyond standard HTML frames and hyperlinks, the most famous examples of such functionality on the Web to date being the AJAX-based Google Maps and Gmail." Gmaps/Gmail did get buzz, but the richest thing in the first was scrolling tiled bitmaps (doesn't hold a candle to Yahoo Maps), and Gmail's text-refresh and database manipulation (weak compared to the Broadmoor handling which preceded it). You could argue that neither Gmail nor GMaps meet the actual definition of RIA, but I don't care about that issue; I'm more concerned about the definition being refitted around something which isn't all that "rich" anyway. I still like JavaScript, though -- we definitely need the range of interactivity and media-handling that the popular browsers share -- and if you're seeking to increase your JavaScript skills, then this AJAXWorld conference & bootcamp seem a good way to do it.
Posted by JohnDowdell at August 20, 2006 01:48 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://weblogs.macromedia.com/mtadmin/mt-tb.cgi/7678
Comments
but the richest thing in (gmail) was scrolling tiled bitmaps (doesn't hold a candle to Yahoo Maps)
ok, i went to yahoo maps. Tiles still load, and the zoom is nowhere near as good as gmaps for where I live. Switch to map view and you dont get any streets. why is this better than google maps, where I can zoom to see my houses roof and every street in my country?
[jd sez: When you zoom in or out the current local bitmaps are immediately interpolated, then gradually replaced as new imagery is tranferred from the server. URLs describe the state of the application on one, not the other. The data layer and the general UI offer several advantages as well, and on a slow connection Yahoo Maps is much snappier. These are some of the differences. Test some more, and I think you'll agree.]
Posted by: goodluck_fish at August 20, 2006 03:32 PM