The .NET answer to AJAX
Hey, I’m not biased or anything, but I started thinking about how .NET could achive the kinds of things that AJAX apps are achieving with Javascript. If you don’t know, check out del.icio.us direc.tor. Amazing!
If you don’t know what AJAX is, check out the Wikipedia definition for AJAX. Or, scroll down to the bottom of the del.icio.us direc.tor link above and get a pretty decent explanation.
I mean, accomplishing something like this would somehow involve ASP.NET on the backend, generating some kind of Javascript/DOM/http magic on the frontend browser. It should all be possible, but the plumbing needs to happen.
Anyway, Chris Sells talks about a new effort within Microsoft called Atlas. Atlas will be built on ASP.NET 2.0 and it seems like the Atlas team will write this plumbing so you can get the same kind of thin-client interactivity enjoyed by AJAX-style apps. Plus, they seem to be concentrating on two areas that seem rather difficult today for AJAX developers. For one, debigging AJAX-style apps seems difficult. Second, reconciling browser differences is probably a royal pain in the ass. We’ll see how that goes.
From what I’m reading, it seems like Atlas could be the basis for the next step in this mad evolutionary race where the Avalon replaces XMLHttp/DHTML/DOM/Javascript, allowing for a massive upgrade in hardware accelerated rich-media user experience.