Microsoft Wants a Piece of the Ajax Action
[NOTE: I wasn't going to say anything about this as I hadnt yet had a chance to play with it and wanted to before I suggested it only to find out it had issues... but there's already an Ajax.NET project that, at a quick first glance, looks pretty sweet! You can find the bits and docs here. At very least it should help speed up your Ajax app development now while you anticipate whats to come via MS directly in this space.]
[Entry]
Knowing that my ability to keep up with the tech world is presently limited to a few short peeks at my feed reader and regular email channels each day a good friend of mine shot this over to me knowing it was something I would be interested in learning about. It seems that ceramic and tile cleaner references aside(yeah, right.. ;), Ajax just found a sugar daddy to take its bitter, chalky-grit(I assume. I havent actually tasted it in case this happened to enter your mind as a possibility ;) flavor and add some sugar and spice and everything XMLHTTP nice to the ingredients list such that the bitter taste of watching the credit for a technology that you spearheaded and paid to have developed be given to a copy-cat implementation and a clever marketing campaign could at very least be swallowed down without hurling it right back up.
Wait... Did you hear that?! I think I just heard Steve Jobs mumble "Its about DAMN time!!! Hey wait... why didnt we copy them first??? Who's fault is this???!!! DAMN IT!!!! I've been waiting for over 20 years to be "called" into Bill's office to hear him say "What this.... this.... this AJAX I'm hearing all about????!!!!"[1]
Wait a sec... there's a missed moment of poetic irony/justice here... While still very much a member of the kitchen and bathroom family of cleaning products "WINDEX" or "We Invented Nothing... Don't Even Xare"[2] seems to fit every piece of the possible puzzle of the aforementioned poetic irony/justice.
Too bad I wasn't around when Jesse was brainstorming acronymic catch phrases, huh! ;)
Just goes to prove its not what or even who you know but where you were and how you reacted when "it" happened.[3]
---
via Mary Jo Foley's coverage...
Microsoft doesn't want to be left behind when it comes to the development code name du-jour. The result? Microsoft 'Atlas,' an Ajax-based programming framework, is born.
After downplaying the importance of the emerging Ajax programming model, Microsoft has decided to jump with booth feet into the Ajax fray.On Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled "Atlas," a Web client framework that is designed to support multiple DHTML controls with JavaScript code.ADVERTISEMENT
With Atlas, Microsoft is looking to simplify Ajax programming, Microsoft officials said.
Microsoft is seeking to "remedy the fact that you don't have to be a rocket scientist" to figure out how to develop for all facets of the Web, said Charles Fitzgerald, general manager of Microsoft's platform strategy group.
Atlas "will let you manage server-side interactions and support full-blown Web services," Fitzgerald said.
[1] I'm not sure how accurate my portrayal is but this was a reinactment -- but in reverse -- of the Bill Gates/Steve Jobs showdown in Steve's office (via "Pirates of Silicon Valley") after finding out that instead of using the machine they were given to write office software Bill just figured they'd build a version kinda/sorta/not-really-to-not-even-close copycat of the whole damn OS and call it "Windows" to then license it to Asian computer hardware manufacturers to build production machines.
[2] Sorry, thats the best I could come up with at 3am in the morning after 3 days worth of 21 hour work days/3 hours per night of sleep... maybe something better will come to mind after I fit a full nights rest into the picture? We'll see what happens :D
[3] "it" represents and can be replaced by any time defining/course changing event you so please.
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Hi,
Well I am a little confused with your articles on this subject. You seem a bit bitter but you are not clear on the reason why.
I mean, as far as I am concerned, I haven’t heard the Mozilla fundation claiming for bringing to the world neither Ajax nor XmlHttpRequest.
It became such a fashion lately because of what Google presented to the community and to the first Adaptive Path article about it.
Now that being said, I think now everyone knows that XmlHttpRequest was brought by Microsoft. Great! I mean even though I am not a big Microsoft-marketing-department fan, developers over there have come up with great tools like DirectX, .NET or XmlHttpRequest.
Now, I don’t recall either Microsoft-marketing-department putting so much hope on it either. Everything was all about smart and/or fat clients.
Now, some companies have decided to build atop XmlHttpRequest some really good applications. Good for them!
Now you look like you’re bitter because the community is buzzing around Ajax (and not everybody is pleased with it either… looking at JSON for instance instead) without mentioning Microsoft. I mean, Microsoft didn’t really bet on XmlHttpRequest either as far as I can tell, did it?
Hey Sylvain,
My bitterness is of the faux Genus of the bitterness Family. Like you I completely understand and recognize that Mozilla is in no way responsible for any of the “credit” they tend to be given for inventing technologies when in fact they simply recognized the value and created an implementation which, in a world of developers in whom were either unaware of XMLHTTP or ignored it because is wasn’t cross platform, became much more than I know they every expected it. And it was Gmail et. Al. that first forced the question “how are they doing this” which of course led to a religious belief in the script-kiddie communities that Mozilla was the source of all this greatness just like they were the source of Firefox, and tabbed-browsing etc…
I tend to poke fun of it from time-to-time, especially after I read blog posts and forum conversations speak to the greatness of Mozilla because “look, now Microsoft has copied them with something called XMLHTTP,,, ha, ha, ha, isnt it funny how Microsoft is panicking” or some other variation of the same.
You are correct that Microsoft was of the belief that people were simply not interested in XMLHTTP so they moved on to the next potential big thing and so on and so forth. I dont think anyone expected Gmail and instead were thinking about declaritive UI’s in SVG, XUL, XAML, etc… When Gmail became the talk of the techtown and people realized all that they had been missing in the realm of email communications they wanted more and more and more. Seeing this it seems MS has said “cool, while five years later than we expected at least there is some recognition as to its value and is something we can build great product against if we focus on using the Ajax architecture to call upon the .NET platform to do all of the heavy lifting and allowing Javascript and XMLHTTP to handle the communication between client and server as to what information they need and how it should be returned to then dynamically update the DOM via its Javascript interface.
I don’t think there has been a change in where MS believes things will eventually end up… phat clients disconnected from the browser while at the same time just as able to live within the browser as well. As such this isnt a major direction or paradigm shift and simply a new definition to something they were already sold on years before.
Thanks for your comments! I appreciate the time you took to make sure I was aware of how I was coming across. This was definitely not my intention but obviously my comments tend to be a little outside the norm… Its my way of staying sane in an insane world I guess… just laugh it off when needed, smile for real when you have real reasons to smile, and move on to whats next when on the days tasklist.
Cheers :) <M:D/>
Hi David,
I am really pleased with your comment too (shall we stop throwing flowers now?) which shows that can step back and be objective.
I understand that it can be quite frustrating to see all those comments on blos about how Google or Mozilal have brought XmlHttpRequest and Ajax… which is obviously false. They just have used tools already there but that nobody thought they would be of any use.
Now I could argue that Microsoft-marketing [1] does not know how to handle that situation because they haven’t foreseen that that technology would take off that much. Now they are in a difficult place because they will have to start “selling” Ajax as a key technology for the future although for many years now they haven’t bet on XmlHttpRequest… their own child!
It’s just another place where marketing department are just dump and blind.
But anyway, thanks for your posting back. Look forward reading you again.
[1] I tend to specify Microsoft-marketing because if Microsoft could listen more to their developers I am pretty sure things like that would not happen. Of course this is just a thought…
Off topic…
Great job you did with Saxon.NET :)
Hey Sylvain,
Thanks for your kind words. I am learning more and more as each day passes that as passionate as I tend to be with my initial comments and feelings on a subject matter I have to be just as passionate about listening to others comments and adjusting my thoughts (or at very least further explaining my initial comments) when their points are valid, well thought out, and at very least bring out pieces of my argument that are incorrect based on knowledge that they have they I ay not. It one of the most exciting things about a blog… You can express your own feeling and knowledge on a given subject and in return receive fantastic insite and understanding from people in whom you have never me but yet share common goals and interests. Its a great way to share and learn or learn and share, however the case may be. :)
One note I find interesting: It seems that ever since Microsoft and Sun gave both the green light and encouragement for employees to begin blogging tht both companies have made tremendous strides when it come to listening to and reacting to the comments and suggestions of their customer base. Its no surprise that IBM recognized the value and have recently announced they too are taking on a blogging policy, encouraging their work force to get out there and speak their mind. Very exciting stuff!
Regarding your Saxon.NET comment: Thanks! But in reality almost all credit must be given to Dr. Michael Kay, the developer of Saxon, and Jeroen Frijters, the developer of IKVM.NET. None-the-less I appreciate your thoughts on this matter as I definitely believe that having XSLT 2.0 support on the .NET platform is extremely important and something I hope will have a long term impact in the .NET development community.
Cheers :)