Comments

# imaginedesign said on March 27, 2006 2:48 PM:

I don't know what to think about the whole AJAX thing. It's been around for a long time and the only reason people see it as "new" is because some corporate entity started embracing these types of methods.

As far as relating to your post. I read an article about all of the various functionality from a browser point of view that web users loose when implementing either AJAX or Flash. I beleive one of the features we loose when using these methods of web development  is the concept bookmarking and back.

If anything I think it makes the web more confusing for those that are not super computer literate.

# chradil said on July 31, 2006 6:56 PM:

I've been doing a bit of reading here on your blog, and posting my own thoughts/comments where relevant. I've also made a post to your CSS article of Oct. 2005, which isn't worth re-stating here, however is extremely relevant.

To put that thought in different words, the idea or my concept of a "best practice" as far as development goes is to maximize reach and richness while at the same time minimizing development time and costs. For these reasons personally (see my <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/devi/archive/2005/10/11/CSSLayout.aspx">prior post</a> or <a href="http://hradil.us">website</a> for some background info on my experience, etc) I've chosen to focus on using alternative platforms for web based development, since one of the key criteria for me is the concept of building upon an existing "framework".

Yes, MS offers Content Management Server and a number of other "framework" type products however, they fall somewhat short of the capabilities of some of the alternatives (especially currently as of this writing Aug. 2006) which are available.

Take for example the plethora of content management "frameworks" available via the open source world (many are even compatible with IIS or at least apache running on  an MS based server). Using a system like this eliminates the need to re-develop or code mcuh of the "core" common to almost every website or web based application, instead allowing developers to focus on enhancing richness, reach and useability.

Most of these systems - for some good examples, take a look at http://www.opensourcecms.com or http://www.cmsreview.com, - eliminate the need for building from the ground up (which is one of the things many of the existing MS Tools and server environments are really good at) saving enormous amounts of time and money and allowing developers to focus on important features, standards compliance, and so on.

Another good example of part of the problem which exists today with many web properties is the "URI" or "URL" for existing content. Just looking at the url for this posting/comment for an example, what happens when the .aspx extension goes away ?

One of two (ok three) things must happen in order for folks to still be able to access this content.
1) MS/MSDN must maintain a server(or server farm) with this content and the existing url's indefinately.
2) When the aspx extension changes, a mechanism for re-directing users to the actual content they had bookmarked or linked to must be developed
OR 3) Developers and system engineers could get to work today on developing URI's according to the W3C recommendations, thus making them here to stay for the long term no matter what browser or backend systems we're using in the future.

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