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49 Comments
- nwatkins, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17Good blog. But I am always skeptical of titles that use words like Must, Always, and Never.
- BloodJunkie, on 10/12/2007, -7/+18Are we really giving credit to GMail for showing everyone the beauty of AJAX? Personally, it was Flickr who did it for me.
- Bigredman74, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Check out this page for more places to use Ajax:
http://www.colgate.com/app/Colgate/US/HC/Products/HouseholdCleaners/Ajax.cvsp - jimphelps, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12ditto on flickr, but I like what google did also.
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10This is actually a _spectacular_ list. I don't actually digg things often, but this got one.
The core idea of ajax is small transactions. The digg comment moderation system is a great example: imagine if the page refreshed every time you modded a comment up/down.
God, that'd suck - deadlierchair, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I have never really used Flickr so Gmail is the primary example of AJAX in my computing life. I'm not as concerned with who showed what, all I know is that hotmail is hell compared to Gmail. Gmail is so fast, plain, and effective. Hotmail makes you reload so much with so much crap, it is almost painful to use compared to Gmail. For web based email, Gmail is a great example of how AJAX should be usd to make browsing better.
- st00p1d, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8They forgot "On a dirty floor".
"Ajax All-Purpose Cleaner by COLGATE PALMOLIVE. Removes tough dirt and grease to leave surfaces sparkling clean(TM)" - thewise1, on 10/12/2007, -10/+16Personally, I'm skeptical of titles that use the word AJAX as if it's our saviour.
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Imagine if the page refreshed every time you modded a digg comment up/down.
Yeah, that'd blow. Thank god digg uses AJAX for that.
Don't get me wrong -- you can over do it, and AJAX is overhyped. But it's a ***** godsend in some situations. - dirwood, on 10/12/2007, -9/+14but you MUST, otherwise the Web2.0 police will come after you and your family.
- dwb75, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Funny thing is, M$ should be getting some of the credit for pioneering some of what AJAX is from OWA. But honestly, I'd rather give the credit to Gmail.
- imjustabill, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Thats one of the reasons most other rating systems bug the crap out of me. I frequent bash.org quite a bit, and whenevery you vote a quote up or down, you get sent to a page that says "your vote has been added" or something to that effect, and then have to click back to go back to the main page. Its annoying enough to keep me from rating things. A little bit of ajax would make this much easier and probably encourage a lot more people to vote.
- alex.bosworth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ok - I wrote this article and I take full blame for any discontent with it
here's a succinct counterpoint for you:
http://digg.com/software/Ajaxturbation:_a_disturbing_trend
This link only gets like half of the places where it's a good idea to use Ajax though, you can find the wiki page with the rest @ http://swik.net/Ajax/Places+To+Use+Ajax - Lumiras, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Does anyone else think that Amazon.com is in dire need of an Ajax makeover? The website still navigates and looks like it did in 2000
- Trenton, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I'm definantly use both flickr and google, but google I use the most, and it seems they integrate it into all their webpages.
I believe that is one of the reasons gmail is rated the top, not because of all of the other features it has, but how it is so nicely designed, and the user interface is slick.
I have to force myself to learn ajax for a website I would like to use it on, because it is so nice to know xml, alone with javascript and what it can do for the user interface. - jokerr, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Maybe it's me but that least seemed more like common sense...
- euphoria, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3at first it WAS flash. Many people forget this, but Flickr only recently (in the past year, well after Gmail) converted much of its code to DHTML. It still uses flash in some places, but used to be very heavily flash-based.
- 1911wolf, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The toilet bowl and the bathtub are great places for Ajax that you should not overlook.
- diggm0nkey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2My thoughts exactly. Perhaps "some of the best" places would have been better. However wouldnt have got dugg, except by the AJAX yuppies :)
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2You're right, you only need Javascript -- as long as all your data fits on one page.
However, if you want to sort data that takes more than one page (say, a list of products on ebay), the client doesn't have all the data to sort it (in most cases, giving the client all the data ahead of time would be very wasteful). So you've gotta call the server. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3It's the fact that there's never a "Must" for Ajax. In fact, I wouldn't mind a non-javascript filled Digg. It'd take me half the time to load the page, and if I click the up/down on a comment, it'll "refresh" the page but you could anchor it just as quickly to where it left off. I especially hate the load time for the javascript classes. But that's just me ;)
I think Ajax is a great idea, and it is useful for the up/down and other similar situations. But it's never a "must". Certain sites overuse the concept...like...Tagworld [ugh] - aubreyq, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2LOL!!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+5I think that AJAX is just hyped up. If a page is written properly, and harnesses compression and very efficient code - then AJAX isn't needed. In fact, I think most times AJAX slows me down on the web if I'm filling out a form, etc.
- DevlinD, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Good blog, but some of the things he mentions dont even need AJAX.
- Filtering and involved data manipulation
Why does this require AJAX? I implemented almost the exact same thing in our system at work just using plain javascript. And yes its overhyped..for sure, but damn is it great when applied to something useful like Google Suggest. - MelvinSchlubman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2...it's also officially annoying to use sites that AJAX interactivity because it's the current fad, not because it makes using the site better, and in doing so makes the site harder to use. Example: the "Sexy" and "Cool" lists on http://www.visit4info.com/. The dynamic image gets in the way of clicking the link that takes you to the video. You have to nondeterministically hover over the link until the image happens to not be in the way.
- andreatwork, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Meebo.com for me!
- tzahi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2One thing i disagree, the messaging applications. Only COMET can solve that satisfactory since ajax is still a polling technology. COMET allows a server to push information to the client.
- lusername, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2F**k GMail. At the risk of sounding like a cheerleader for Microsoft, who remembers browser access to Exchange Server going back to 1998 or '99? Especially for the time that was some pretty slick scripting, giving people a good webmail interface to their Outlook accounts. Came in handy when all else seemed to fail but the server was still up. Yeah, so what if it was MS? That was [is?] some good coding.
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Amazon likes to build everything themselves. I know this, because I interned at a company that offered them an AJAX-esque solution back in early '02, before it was even called AJAX (there was no XMLHTTP request, and firefox was still in diapers).
They code *everything* they can by themselves over there. That's likely why they haven't just grabbed someone else's AJAX platform, and gone hog-wild. - veracon, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Wasn't this here back in December or so?
Even if it wasn't, it's not news. And there are no places you "must" use "Ajax". - deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2I disagree. Old fashion HTML forms are becoming a major PITA to use on some sites due to slow ad servers and complex pages. You don't want to force your users to reload an entire page just to vote on a story or edit a comment. It's a waste of bandwidth and a waste of time. AJAX is a must if you want to offer social features on your site and actually get people to use them.
- cyclotron, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1ditto flickr. At first I thought it was Flash.
- carguy84, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Add another vote for OWA, gmail is definitely not the AJAX pioneer.
- cyclotron, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Google maps are AJAX... I think you are just bitter for some reason. AJAX is not over hyped because it delivers. Web 2.0 is overhyped, in contrast.
- wistar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Indeed. They just called it DHTML at the time.
- energeek, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1flickr and gmail for me too. Spartan and slick. they know how to design a good interface. So does the mozilla foundation but they don't need ajax so its out of the picture
- jibblies, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1The title of this article should have been "Common Sense For Dummies"
- rjett, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Ajax should be used in the shower..
- konforce, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1"Sliders, drag and drops, bouncies, mouse gestures, whatever. Mostly these widgets can be replaced with more intuitive controls, or eliminated altogether in favor of simplicity. In picking colors, maybe a slider widget is useful to pick the exact shade. But in picking a price point in a store, a slider to pick the price to the cent is just overkill."
Since when has a slider used "AJAX"? If you are going to write an article, at least understand that "AJAX" is, by definition, using XMLHttpRequest to make a backend query to a server that returns XML data. It has nothing to do with javascript effects, custom widgets, or anything else like that. AJAX is a small subset of DHTML that performs a single task. Nothing more, nothing less. - electrichead, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I agree. This only requires javascript. Maybe paging could do with a little AJAX but not filtering / sorting.
- supergwiz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1OWA does work on firebox.. it just not as robust in features but credit M$ to not do the typical forced browser switch.
BTW, I think the unspoken pioneer of Ajax, before even flickr, is TurboTax.com . It is a fee based app and it deals with the least sexiest business there is but one can't dismiss that their app was the early adapter of using good DHTML for usability reasons. - merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Flikr manages flash-like effects _without requiring a plugin_.
I'm pretty sure that counts as innovation.
If you want to play that game, flash isn't innovative either, 'cause there's nothing flash does that your standard mac/windows/linux GUI app couldn't already do.
Flash just put it in a browser.
And flikr just did it without a proprietary, closed-source plugin. - gburch, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1"ditto flickr. At first I thought it was Flash." - Makes you wonder who the real innovators were when you have to mention flash in contrast :)
- Xnus980w, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1stock charts, please Ajax it, I am so sick of hitting refresh to see the latest numbers.
- jinexile, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1When OWA works on Firefox I'll give it some credit, but until then GMail is teh winnar.
- SIDSI, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Thats great but when should you use one of these http://www.chia.com/chia.html
- bede, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Even though I'd used both Gmail and Flikr the site which really brought home the possibilities of this AJAX stuff to me was right here at Digg.
- FusionGyro, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0"It's been well over a year now since the GUI changed the way everyone thought about programs. It's now officially annoying to use programs that haven't replaced text-based interfaces with peppy GUI goodness."
That's nice. I'll get right on that. - squeevey, on 10/12/2007, -10/+5Do you and gmail need a room?
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