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[For all my posts on AJAX/ATLAS see All My Thoughts on AJAX/ATLAS http://blogs.imason.com/scott.howlett/ajax_atlas.aspx]

Been having a chance to do a little more research on AJAX and to do a little more thinking about what this means in terms of trends for web applications and web application development.  I’m a tad concerned that some folks here at imason might jump all over me for anything positive I might say about AJAX, so let me be entirely clear from the start about my current position.

1. The benefits of AJAX-styled applications are dramatic for end-users.  Just use Google Suggest, Google Maps, Virtual Earth or Live.com.  This will convince.
2. Javascript/AJAX is totally inferior for writing web applications compared with the two dominant platforms .Net and Java.  Writing applications in Javascript is a step backward (maybe by about 25 years).
3. The sweet spot, then, is for frameworks to evolve such that writing web apps (in .Net or Java) in an AJAX-styled manner is no more difficult than current approaches (or maybe even easier). 

When this happens, you get the end-user benefits of AJAX without the crippling productivity hit of doing extensive development in Javascript.  This is the domain of Microsoft ATLAS initiative.  More to come…

Post number 5 - see all the previous postings here:  All My Thoughts on AJAX/ATLAS.

In Post #2, I left off with the idea that AJAX itself wasn’t the silver bullet for web apps.  Simply put, web applications have really exploded around a single primary benefit (ease of distribution) while living with a single primary weakness (poor UI).  AJAX, as an approach for building web apps, really slots itself in the middle of that primary benefit and that primary weakness.  In specific, it really addresses the weakness (poor UI) without comprimising the benefit (ease of distribution).  However, in doing so AJAX has introduced a second primary weakness - that being, the strength of the environment that is available to write AJAX-styled applications for the web.

The environment for writing applications really comes down to three things:

1. What tools exists for developers to write and debug the actual code?
2. What framework exists for developers to leverage in doing server-side development?
3. What framework exists for developers to leverage in doing client-side development?

AJAX is “Asynchronous Javascript and XML”, so at it’s roots as an approach is the idea of improving the UI by using Javascript.  Javascript, as a framework for building applications, is way way behind the two dominant application platforms out there today (those being .Net and Java/J2EE).  So, in terms of the development environment, there really isn’t anything out there for building AJAX-styled applications that even touches the state of the art for building .Net apps (Visual Studio) or Java apps (Eclipse). 

In terms of a server-side framework (this is item two in the list above) AJAX as an approach prescribes nothing - your server-side framework need only be capable of being called from client-side Javascript.   In terms of a client-side framework (item 3 above), there are a bunch of initiatives out there for building out the client-side javascript framework required for writing AJAX-sytled apps.

So, this is really the strenth of the ATLAS offering - that is, Microsoft will provide the “environment” for building AJAX-styled applications.  But unlike most (or all) other initiatives out there, Microsoft will not stop at just building a client-side framework.  They’re busy building out the full environment for writing AJAX apps - that includes integrating AJAX support right into Visual Studio (they already have an awesome ability to debug client-side Javascript that nearly noboday knows about), they’ll build server-side support right into the .Net framework and and they’ll provide the client-side framework required.

Do not underestimate this tri-fecta => there are very few companies in the world that can provide the full environment besides Microsoft.  I suspect, that in mid-2006 (when ATLAS is released and no guarantees that this is the actual date) we’ll see that the best platform for building AJAX apps is indeed Microsoft ATLAS.

Next up - gadgets & www.live.com.  Stay tuned.

/s.