Are you Ajax Enabled? Everybody else is…

I do not know if the Guinness Book keeps such records, but the word Ajax sure would be a frontrunner if they had a record for “Fastest adoption of a new word”

We have all been sentenced to an overdose of Ajax and Web 2.0. I agree that it’s fun and exciting to say that the next generation of web apps and Web 2.0 is here, but it’s going too far. There are no rules for what is an Ajax compliant application or what is a Web 2.0 app. So every new application / IDE / framework / code / website / service… now says that they are Ajaxed. One validation happens asynchronously and the app claims AJAX support as one of its top features.

With web frameworks, it’s the similar case. The framework creators just add the javascript files for any one of the popular ajax frameworks and the parent framework now claims to have solid Ajax support.

It’s a sensible thing to do for marketing guys to draw attention by blowing things out of proportion, but I think techies need to be make more judicious use of the word.

Recently JUnit 4.0 was released, thankfully they didn’t say that it was Ajaxed. Hey, as I just typed this in GMail and pressed Ctrl+S accidentally, Gmail reminded me that Gmail’s the place where Ajax got its mass base.

What is an Ajax or Web 2.0 Application?

I think there’s a need to come up with some rules for “What Is An Ajax Application?” and apps that comply can carry the “Ajax Enabled’ image. Or even better, a small software kit that will go through the Javascript and check if an application fulfills all the requisites for it to be termed as an Ajax application. The above image is my crude attempt at an “Ajax Enabled” image. You are free to use / modify the image to mark your site as “Ajax Enabled”.

Everything’s AJAX

What happens when every web app is Ajax enabled and asynchronous communication is the rule and not the exception. I suppose that won’t take too long as every new web app wants to get on the Ajax bandwagon.

So by late 2007, it should no longer be fashionable to say that your app is Ajaxed. In a sense, Ajax will be dead. I wonder what will happen to the word Ajax, will it die out or morph into something new.

Related:
>> Is AJAX worth adopting?
>> Ajax technologies aren’t particularly new or sexy
>> What is AJAX all about? (Audio)
>> AJAX Security Threats and Performance Challenges
>> AJAX Books