ASP.NET Ajax Released

darrenkopp writes "Microsoft released their anticipated AJAX framework that integrates with their ASP.NET product .It is a fully supported product (24x7 phone support), but is completely free! They are releasing the source for it as well."

Browser compatibility?

[Kelson]

So, are they specifically targeting IE and Firefox (at least we're finally past the days when they'd just target IE and say to hell with the rest of the world) or are they building it on commonly-available JS+DOM functions that will work in Opera and Safari as well?

I've been poking around the site, and haven't found anything yet.

Any microsoft sites using it?

[bad_fx]

Are they eating their own dogfood?

Part of the reason I ask is I notice the MSDN site has a whole lot of new features, but I've found most of it to be horribly slow and clunky in firefox. I'm interested in whether it is using this, and whether there are other examples to look at within Microsoft?

Some of the "showcases" look decent, but most of them just seem like toy sites...

Re:dont bash it before you tried it

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and I have tried it.

If you had tried it, then you would know that the generated (x)html and js is not tied to IE or has any requirement of any kind of .net framework installed, in fact many of the video demos MS (peek around asp.net to check it out yourself) is demonstrated with Firefox.

It it on the server side that everything is tied to MS.

Re:I had been following this..

[GeckoX]

Yeah, that's a really good use of AJAX isn't it. Sheesh.

This is why AJAX gets a bad name. I used Atlas before it evolved into this. And that was the problem there too. Look! It's ALL AJAX! All the time! The amount of overhead with this stuff is insane. They're just using the AJAX hook to sell people on a bunch of bloated controls. That is a fact. When you need AJAX, it's VERY easy to do. There is absolutely NO need whatsoever for a 3rd party toolset or components to do this, and enabling every last control you use with AJAX is just stupid.

This isn't AJAX, it's an abomination.

Oh and btw, if that's the nicest calendar you've seen out there...here's a hint: There are literally THOUSANDS of calendar controls out there. And that is certainly nothing new. (And again, absolutely NOTHING that needed AJAX to implement whatsoever.)