When people boast with the term 'ajax framework' I sneer. There is no framework in software development sense, no library, no API, no references. Ajax is primary a web applications look and feel. Part of it is a technique to overcome the page by page look and feel of regular web applications. Another part is a lot of client side coding to update the screen and simulate desktop widgets.
Before 'ajax' is coined, we have another term to describe these client side coding - DHTML, a collection of tools make up of HTML, javascript, dom, event, css, etc. As any DHTML partitioner can tell you, it is lots of hard work, trials and error, and hair pulling to get these trickery done. Ajax suggests we do this in a massive scale. Adding cross browser, cross platform support into the equation and you'll find it is not really for the faint of heart.
Now we have some very smart people pushing the envelope of existing primitives and built some very cool applications. Everybody else is trying to follow suit. What we really need is a higher level web application and widget framework to make this sustainable.
Two developments come into my radar screen. Both are browser independent. XForm poise to be the next generation of web forms and it could form the basis of richer user interface. The OpenLaszlo platform allows developers to create applications with the rich user interface (http://www.openlaszlo.org/). Although it currently requires Flash as the runtime engine.
As much as I like to see a rich user interface, it is also important to keep in the balance with simplicity. I'm rather weary of sending thousands of lines of javascript to be executed on client. It is not the efficiency as suggested in the article that concerns me. It is the complexity of those code that makes me feel uncomfortable.
The Ajax is here to stay. New innovations make it possible to build Ajax applications cheaper and better. For example Just look at a recent announcement from a startup, which demonstrated reusable Ajax GUI Components that are better than Java/Swing classes.
http://cbsdf.com/misc_docs/why-gui-api.htm
http://cbsdf.com/misc_docs/gui-api-brief.htm
Using the simple process outlined any one can create better GUI API, which is better than Windows/VB GUI API to build graphics intensive applications.
What will stop any one from building the great Ajax applications?
You're right, there is no authoritative AJAX Framework, because there's really no consensus about what AJAX means exactly. AJAX isn't a standard, there's no reference implementation, or object model, or API, because it's really a vague term used to describe a set of patterns used to create web applications. These patterns tend to focus on the usability of web applications, and providing the user a rich, interactive experience that keeps the interested.
You point out that adding cross browser and cross platform support into the mix increases the complexity of the problem, and you're right. That's where most of these AJAX frameworks come in handy. You can sneer at the name, but you'd just be joining in with a massive number of web developers who spend more time arguing semantics than producing anything of value. I suggest that you look at some of these AJAX frameworks, because a lot of the focus on providing wrappers around the idiosyncrasies of the various browsers and platforms, allowing you to write your code in a more straightforward, easy to understand and maintain manner. My current personal favourite, in so far as it is simplistic and doesn't try to do everything, is the Prototype library, used by the Ruby on Rails project. I've written up some really rough documentation on the library, seeing as the project itself is lacking good docs. I posted the documentation on my blog at http://blogs.ebusiness-apps.com/jordan/pages/Prototype%20Library%20Info.htm. I'm not actually affiliated with that project in any way, and the docs are just based on a read-through of the source code, so they may not be 100% accurate.
Anyways, thanks for your insightful comments. I'll definitely have to check out that OpenLaszlo project.
By way I want to clarify why I'm bordered by the term 'ajax framework'. I don't mean everyone experimenting and building rich web applications are bonehead. I am bordered by some business and HR people claiming they are building on top of the ajax framework. They don't seems to understand ajax is not a concrete term and the technology is in early stage. Coupling it with the word 'framework' that usually mean something well established is somewhat contradictory.
I believe that the DHTML tricks we are doing are too much toil for most people. And libraries like the Prototype you've mentioned would emerge to make this more manageable. Ideally we would have a standard higher level standard web application definition language to argument HTML and DOM. But that would face many politics and browser upgrade inertia. Two years ago I would worry it would be a Microsoft defined standard. Today plurality seems to back in the picture. I am very encouraged to see internet giants like Google and Yahoo are taking alternative browsers seriously.
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