Be wary of Ajax! (So says Oracle)
Written by on September 27th, 2007 in Ajax News.
I found it kind of ironic that Ted Farrell, Oracle’s chief architect and vice president of tools and middleware, warned many AJAXWorld conference attendees to be wary of Ajax. So let me get this straight. You go to an Ajax-centric conference to tell the developers who are there to learn about Ajax-related technologies to be wary of the very topic they’re there to learn about. Hmmmmmmm.
Ted Farrell, the exec setting technical and strategic direction of Oracle’s own development tools, told The Register that most AJAX frameworks focus on the interface and pay lip service to the most challenging part - integration with back-end servers.
Adopting AJAX-based rich interfaces and internet-based applications at this stage could leave their organizations stranded in the future, lacking either skills or an upgrade path to continue working, he argues.
He does have a point in that most of the current frameworks are really focused on the client-side of things and yes, it would certainly be nice to have some tighter integration with backend systems. But with developers taking abstraction seriously and APIs being developed to simplify access to backend systems via JavaScript, I’m not 100% convinced of Mr. Farrell’s conclusions that organizations will get left out in the cold.
Now, considering Oracle’s commitment to Java, I don’t think you’ll be surprised by the fact that they’re pushing Java Server Faces as the solution for developing rich UIs:
According to Farrell, JSF already delivers the ability to build a rich Web 2.0-style interface while abstracting the developer from integration with the back end. “JSF separates the object model from rendering, you get events back and a render kit decides how the event is rendered,” he said.
He also takes a swipe at other RIA technologies including Adobe AIR & Silverlight (and I’m assuming Adobe Flex as well) basically saying that they provide no standard method of integrating with backend systems.
So is JSF the silver bullet we’ve all been waiting for? Should we give up on Dojo, Prototype, Silverlight or Flex?
I’m not jumping ship but I’d definitely like to hear what you think.
Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/161948135/be-wary-of-ajax-so-says-oracle