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Will AJAX bring up a different kind of software developer? |
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Written by Harshad Oak
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Aug 03, 2005 at 12:17 PM |
From what I have read of AJAX, the people who can do a good job at AJAX need a good understanding of not only the divs, iframes and Javascript on the client side but also the business functionality and how it works on the serverside.
As the whole idea of "one page after another" goes out the window with
AJAX (think Gmail), AJAX might necessiate a rethink on the roles of web frontend developers and
the serverside developers. Currently there's a distinction between the tasks that the
HTML+Javascript people do and the tasks left to the serverside developers. However with AJAX, the frontend develpers will have a much bigger role to play. They can
no longer generate 10 distinct pages and hand over to the serverside developers. With AJAX, it's just one application and no pages.
Most serverside developers are well aware of
Javascript but are not experts who would understand the nitty gritties of
the language. On the other hand the web designers might know more of HTML and JavaScript but they would not have an understanding of the backend processing.
So I wonder if AJAX will bring up a different kind of
software developer who has a good understanding of serverside technology but works primarily in HTML
and Javascript.
Apart from cross browser compatibility, another important concern for AJAX apps is that JavaScript isn't a safe langauge like say
Java or C#. Javascript won't stop the developer from doing remarkably stupid things. Debugging javascript issues is also a task best left to the experts. So unless a developer is really good at Javascript, I
guess it would be very easy to completey mess up an AJAX application.
So what will be the division of work in a team working on an AJAX application? Will the hardcore techies abandon mundane serverside Java work and move to the more challenging Javascripting work required for AJAX apps?
AJAX throws up many such interesting questions, which I guess will only be answered if and when we start creating AJAX applications regularly.
Related:
>> Is AJAX worth adopting
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Comment by Noname on 2005-08-05 07:38:25
An important thing you left out is that low-level AJAX development requires thorough knowledge of browser quirks in the myriad versions of browsers.
I think the only sane way to develop AJAX apps is to use components from a mature external library. If people are coding AJAX directly in applications using HTML and JavaScript, they will surely suffer many client-side issues. |
Comment by Noname on 2005-08-05 07:51:47
This depends on the type of organisation you work for. For myself I have to userstand the whole lot. But then if you could see my HTML pages maybe I shouldn't |
Comment by Noname on 2005-11-30 10:37:15
Yes there would have to be some standard opensource libraries that take care of the cross browser quirks.. but beyond that I think life continues as usual .. there is a progammer and there is a designer .... and there is a web application and off course the user |
Comment by Noname on 2005-11-30 10:36:52
Imagine the user experiance if the comment could have been taken through AJAX .... |
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