Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Ajax Revolution

I've been reading about Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript + XML) and it seems to me like this technique is going to be the way to go for Web Application Developers. The best examples out there are Google Maps and Google Suggest. Basically Ajax lets developers create interactive web user interfaces that are comparable to desktop interfaces. Now developers can make requests to the server without having to reload the page and therefore getting rid of the clunkiness. Another advantage is that we get to to work with XML documents.

For .Net developers, more details about Ajax.Net can be found in the msdn library.
Here is a good article "Very Dynamic Web Interfaces" explaining Ajax with code samples.

A lot of big companies are switching their applications into Ajax. Even Microsoft's new version of hotmail will be heavily based on Ajax and Yahoo's new beta mail already uses Ajax. Other nice applications using this technolgy are ThinkFree and Writely.

Monday, January 23, 2006

First Post

Following the wise advice of a good friend of mine, I started this blog to record my discoveries and adventures about the everyday new and challenging tools for Web Software Development.
I've been programming in .Net for a few months now and I am swallowing waves of information and learning as much as I can as fast as I can. I am very interested in Agile development, especially the Crystal Clear methodology and Xtreme Programming. I am learning and implementing Agile processes in my current job in the hopes that soon these techniques will start to pay off.