Is Microsoft Committed to AJAX ?

re: Is Microsoft Committed to AJAX ?

Stephane — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 21:09:19 GMT

Count me in on the rant thread. xml-script / client-side databinding was the stuff I was excited about when Atlas was in beta. 18 months later - virtually nothing's happened in that area. No support for xml-script in VS 2008. When I posted about this in the Orcas beta thread, the answer I got was "maybe in 2010". Are you kidding?

If xml-script and client-side controls are dead, MS would do developers a favor by just aknowledging it so we can all switch to active, well supported javascript frameworks.

re: Is Microsoft Committed to AJAX ?

Mike — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 08:22:05 GMT

Just wanted to post here one more time:

It's been two months and there's a new Ajax Control Toolkit release: ONE BUG FIX! That's it folks, nothing to see here, move along now, on to something better.

re: Is Microsoft Committed to AJAX ?

Mike — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 20:58:40 GMT

Seriously, your answer to our worries is video's and WCF support?

Rant (feel free to ignore, but I think I have some valid points):

First of all: It's about time Visual Studio understood JavaScript, and it's really sad that Microsoft had to invent their own documentation standard for it, totally ignoring scriptdoc (hello, can we standardize on standards please?). Normally Scott Guthrie answers all questions on his blog, but when asked about scriptdoc, it was ignored. Even sadder is having to actually write code (sort of a comment) to include a script file to get intellisense! What, I'm now writing code for my IDE?

And how does all that help me get drag and drop, or a decent treeview. or client side gridview sorting? The toolkit has bugfixes and a new testing framework. Meanwhile there's not even a way to pause animations with the toolkit. You see, from my point of view, it's not moving, at all.

The fact that you now call Futures _very early_ stuff makes me worry even more. I still can't believe Microsoft bumps the version number for ASP.NET Ajax from 1.0 to 3.5 with not that much to show for it.

Sure, the process is more open now, but there's still a disconnect between what you guys think is great (Silverlight, WCF, javascript intellisense) and what I think is great (actual releases). If I'm the only that feels this way, please ignore, but somehow, I think I'm not.

re: Is Microsoft Committed to AJAX ?

kazimanzurrashid — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 20:22:56 GMT

Hi Joe,

It is a bit confusing how the Ajax part in Future is evolving. Let us say Both AjaxControlToolKit and Core Ajax Library has the Drag and Drop Manager as well as the Animation Behaviors of its own. In addition, it seems the Animation in ACT is much more stable comparing to Core (Clear type font is completely ignored in Core but Act addresses it). Moreover, another annoying thing with the Core is that the JS file so much intermixed that if I just want to use the Drag and Drop Manager I have to include the Large PreviewScript.js (where only the Timer class is used) which I think is such a waste of Bandwidth. So I am when can I expect to get well structure files of the Core and is there any chance that the above common part of the ACT will be replaced by the Core?

re: Is Microsoft Committed to AJAX ?

Vikram — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 18:16:27 GMT

Thanks for post.These kind of posts help in keeping the trust in a product

re: Is Microsoft Committed to AJAX ?

Drew Marsh — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:54:23 GMT

Good to hear, but seriously the Futures are stagnant. There's been very little in the way of updates except to add support for Silverlight in the past couple of releases.

All the power is in the futures: xml-script, bindings, controls, templates. So, what's the deal? Will xml-script go the JSON route instead? Will the problems with templating be fixed (i.e. having to nest templates and forcing nodes to be cloned/wiped out unecessarily)? Etc, etc, etc.

Thanks,

Drew