Sabre Airline Solutions has open-sourced their AJAX API (called Rico. I saw some applications build with this API a couple of months ago, at the AJAX summit. I don’t know how easy it is to code with, but I can tell you that it demos _very_ well.
AJAX
Big-up to bigempty
Bigempty’s coverage of the AJAX conference has been superb.
AJAX summit continued 3
Day two of the O’reilly/Adaptive Path AJAX confab in SF started as a continuation of day 1, with a series of presenters showing off their latest AJAX tricks.
AJAX summit continued 2
More from the AJAX summit
David Heinemeier Hansson just gave a nice overview of the AJAX-related features of the ruby on rails API. It’s impossible to evaluate an API without using it (at least for me), but this stuff looks pretty neat! The basic idea seems to be minimizing the complexity of the code on the client (since cross-platform javascript development is such hell). They use .innerHtml to rewrite the html that displays to the user, and keep html generation server side. Cinematic UI effects (like fading) are baked into the API. David is a funny guy. He REALLY hates DOM-based javascripting!
AJAX summit continued
Many of the morning presenters were presenting little web tweaks: tactical improvements to a site that make it just a little bit faster, easier, or have a clearer workflow. Technorati and Flickr both showed the minor improvements that they have made to their sites. These tweaks sound like they were a LOT of work to do. This is a big problem with AJAX: doing it “right” (for all browsers) means taking on a lot of technical complexity.
Oreilly AJAX summit
I’m at the Oreilly AJAX summit today and tomorrow (speaking later today).
Here’s the speaker list and the wiki.
Right now Jesse James Garrett has just wrapped up the keynote. No surprises so far
Javascript Accordian Widget wanted
Anyone know of a good javascript accordian widget? I may need one for an upcoming project. Treeviews seem plentiful, accordians are a little harder to find…
Adobe to buy macromedia
I am dumbfounded!
Adobe has a dry press release, Mike Chambers provides some thoughtful commentary, and Mark Cantor spews some bile on the proceedings. Om Malik and Genuine VC cover the business angle. Slashdotters and Metafites have various opinions, as usual. Ross Mayfield also has a nice summary.
Update (4/22/05): hilarious translation of the dry Adobe press release.
I have nothing useful to say about this, except that I’ve worked at companies going through complex buy-outs, acquisitions, mergers, etc: it’s ALWAYS a distraction, it always slows things down.
Xamlon: a .NET->SWF compiler!
Xamlon has released to beta a new developer product (Xamlon Flash Edition) that will compile a .Net program down to a SWF runtime. Like most good ideas, it seems obvious only in retrospect. News stories , many blog postings, and even tutorials all seem pretty postitive so far. Most criticisms seem focussed on SWF as a deployment technology rather than Xamlon per se. The dubious buzzword AFLAX (AJAX with flash) is used to describe what is really a standard Flash application.
Games, flow and RIA design
I have never been much of a game player. Apart from the occasional game of Solitaire during college (and a seriously disturbing brush with Grand Theft Auto last year), I managed not to get addicted even while hanging out with game obsessed geeks, and building Tetris for a computer science course. I would look at people addicted to computer games, and congratulate myself on knowing better.
jonathanboutelle.com 