No Mod Required » ajax

PSST! I've Got a Presentation Next Week – JavaScript Library Comparisons

rob — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:33:39 +0000

I am cranking through some code examples and plenty of research for this thing. It should kick incredible amounts of JavaScript ass. Come to think of it, it's a ninety minute presentation, so it better kick ass I'm going to look at load times, execution times, ySlow scores, codebase and add pure editorial commentary for several popular libraries (at minimum, jQuery, YUI, Prototype, and Dojo), as well as pure JavaScript and my own bare-bones library.

If you're a Boston JavaScript nerd, I hope to see you there.

Here's the description:

Our next JavaScript Meetup will be held on Thursday, April 30th at Microsoft Research Center located at One Memorial Drive in Cambridge. You should come to the 11th floor to be let in. There is also parking available at a cheap evening rate in the building.

Rob Larsen , Principal Presentation Engineer at Cramer, will demonstrate comparisons between raw JavaScript and utilizing the more popular JavaScript libraries currently available.

After the presentation | demonstration, we will go around the room introducing ourselves and asking the group for advice | opinions on any JavaScript-related issues members are facing.

Microsoft will provide pizza again. What a nice company!

Please RSVP and bring guests. We always have lots of pizza left over.

And the meetup.com link:

April Boston JavaScript Meetup Meeting – JavaScript Library Comparisons – The Boston JavaScript Meetup Group Cambridge, MA – Meetup.com

Ajax, DHTML and a Glaring Void in My Vocabulary

rob — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 03:54:46 +0000

I've run into an issue of nomenclature over the past couple of years and it's finally turned into a "thing."

What does one do with "things?"

If you answered, "write about them," you got it in one.

Anyway, this issue comes up pretty consistently when talking about my job (HTML/CSS/JavaScript) with designers, clients and/or project managers that know just enough to be dangerous (and not much more.) They know that JavaScript can do some pretty slick animations and they know that the reborn trend of using JavaScript for effects and interactivity coincides with the rise of Ajax techniques in application development over the past couple of years. Put two and two together and for a lot of people in the industry anything "fancy" you do with JavaScript is "Ajax."

Except it's not.

Ajax, for those of you unclear on the concept (and there are a lot of you) is a method of sending and receiving data that allows for smoother interactions in web based applications. While updating the page with those results, creating desktop style effects and animations in the browser are integral to heightening that smoother, more responsive interaction, Ajax, as defined, doesn't cover those techniques.

Which brings me to the other part of the "thing." Without resurrecting Dynamic HTML (DHTML) I don't have a better term for those effects and animations. I end up just letting people call it "Ajax." Which is frustrating to me as I spend a lot of time trying to come up with better ways to articulate complex technical issues to nontechnical people. If I get lazy and let people perpetuate an imprecise use of the term it makes my job more difficult when I actually have to explain what happens when we really are using Ajax.

So the question is, what to call it? Personally I'd be cool with using DHTML as the catch-all for that stuff, but I feel like I'm in the minority on that point. A lot of people have a negative association with the term (for good reason, really- that much flashy, useless code leaves a mark), so the last thing I want to do is evoke that kind of feeling in a meeting*.

I just don't have an alternative.

Thoughts?

*While I avoid it, other folks will occasionally spring it on me, which is always fun**. If they toss in another piece of ancient jargon like "div layer" I realize I'm in the presence of another web greybeard and I am glad…

**C'mon, I'm talking about meetings here. It's not "fun" like a night at the opera. I mean "fun" as in "better than a meeting in which nothing interesting happens and I'm just drawing for 45 minutes"

Dear Internet, Is There Any Reason I Wouldn't Want to Do This?

rob — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:04:21 +0000

Got firebug? Load this test page: Simple Style Graffiti Canvas and watch as I load the "previous" and "next" pages with XHR, parse out the image tags in each, adding them to the users cache.

Is there any reason I wouldn't want to do that?

The performance benefit in the browser is a huge reason TO do it.

But what about the flip side?

I'm already thinking about the extra requests that might not be actually used by visitors who don't follow the back and next path? Those could add up maybe. If I implemented this my site would handle an extra 3 php requests per initial page load and then two cached requests and one new request each additional page. But, that doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

Again, am I missing something?

Anything else?

In the market for some auto-suggest action?

rob — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 19:41:51 +0000

If you are, I just stumbled across this:

AutoSuggest: An AJAX auto-complete text field : CSS . XHTML . Javascript . DOM, Development : Brand Spanking New

I think it looks pretty slick.

Brendan Eich's presentation from The Ajax Experience

rob — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:38:30 +0000

I think I'll be running through this after lunch, myself.

ScribeMedia » Firefox 2 and Javascript with Brendan Eich