Comments on: The Ajax Revolution: From UI responsiveness to functionality and beyond

By: dion

dion — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:31:45 +0000

@Brian, Some good ideas, I will noodle on them. Firebug can do some of that, and it can do more. Firebug is starting to cook again.

@Brad, Yeah ma man. Let’s do it :)

@Duckie, Great ideas. Keep them coming. We are listening!

By: SchizoDuckie

SchizoDuckie — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:46:16 +0000

I think there could be a couple of things the mozilla foundation could do:

* Create a ‘mozdev/sourceforge’-alike site for plugins for all the favorite js libraries out there, with good info for the developers and standard demos to get started
* Host the all versions of the js libraries like the google project, but then keep up with the releases
* Maybe even try to create a standard for deploying javascript libraries into the browsers themselves. It would save all users loads of time if they don’t have to keep loading the same libraries. Just identify jquery, mootools, whatever and save them in a special ‘cache’ that maybe even precompiles them for the new JS engine
* *Keep Updating FIREBUG!*

By: Brad Neuberg

Brad Neuberg — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:22:15 +0000

Hi Dion, we are in exactly the same place (of course :) As I’ve been out here doing the GDDs I’ve been taking some time trying to think about where we are headed on the web in general. It’s like we are fighting these battles to just eke out small improvements; we need more. I mean, things like HTML 5, the Canvas tag, and more are great, but are they enough? Things are still too hard to create, the functionality we need needs to be more compelling, and more. We should definitely meet up when you are back from your sabbatical and I’m back in the states :)

By: Brian LeRoux

Brian LeRoux — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 19:06:48 +0000

Just as design patterns are symptoms of language deficiency I believe frameworks are symptoms of deficient platforms. The various browser vendors need to step up their game make these frameworks irrelevant and work together to improve the language on obvious fronts: querySelectorAll for example. That said, its never gonna happen, but there does seem to be some level agreement to disagreement. People are gonna choose their js frameworks and thats it.

Tooling such as Firebug, Inspector (droseria) and whatever IE developers use are a good start but could be vastly improved with better code generation, test framework output integration (specs?)…. Watir/Selenium style testing built right into the browser for automation and testing.

The language itself could have more utility. What about an IRB like console for JavaScript for scripting with full file system access? I suppose Rhino could be a way to do this / should check that out myself!

Thanks for this Dion — look forward to seeing what you guys cook up!