Microsoft Releases Atlas 300
Jason Lind writes "Much earlier than anticipated, Microsoft announced the release of Atlas this afternoon at MIX 06. For those who don't know, Atlas is Microsoft's AJAX API for ASP.NET 2, which they claim will greatly reduce the effort in developing AJAX style applications on their platform."
If it's anything like the rest of ASP.net... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:If it's anything like the rest of ASP.net... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If it's anything like the rest of ASP.net... (Score:2)
Re:If it's anything like the rest of ASP.net... (Score:3, Insightful)
The ATLAS framework, for people who do get into
Re:Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Internet Explorer.. (Score:2)
Re:Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Internet Explorer.. (Score:3, Insightful)
The only people who back up this rhetoric are Microsoft employees on their
Re:Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Internet Explorer.. (Score:2)
Well, what they're not saying is that it's less code but more markup. If you use their controls then you put all the properties in the .aspx file as an XML object, but you're hardly saving time by setting properties in there vs setting them in code like you used to.
Re:Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Internet Explorer.. (Score:2)
JSP? Are you sure you're comparing apples and oranges here? JSP is just one part of J2EE, and the combination as a whole is competitive with
Re:If it's anything like the rest of ASP.net... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If it's anything like the rest of ASP.net... (Score:3, Insightful)
As for them making it cross-platform, that would involve standards, which
easier? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:easier? (Score:2)
Re:easier? (Score:2, Informative)
Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:5, Interesting)
Are there good uses for Ajax? Sure. Google Maps is probably the single best example out there at the moment, and I would expect some more to show up soon.
BUT, will Ajax supplant the client app as the workhorse of productivity applications? Not a chance:
The funniest thing for me about Ajax is it basically is just doing what Java Applets can do, only Java is better. WTF?!?!
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:2)
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:2)
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, on the other hand, maybe we could make widget libraries that do all the heavy lifting of X11 for us? Then we could program to the widget libraries rather than the uber-complex X11 drawing library! Genius!
The same is true of AJAX. Right now, everyone is programming at the lowest level. What AJAX needs is a higher level set of widgets that can accelerate development. Mozilla took the XUL path, but that won't work for cross-browser applications. We need a general-purpose widget library written using the standard HTML DOM. Then AJAX will become a quick and easy option.
Unfortunately, Atlas isn't it. This is just a collection of custom tags to simplify and standardize ASP programming.
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:3, Informative)
You could write Widgets to run on AJAX just like you could on X11, but it will be really tough since AJAX is not a standard, and it wasn't intended for that purpose. It's just not a solid basis. I'm not saying it won't happen, but it won't be pretty. I'm not sure that such a widget library will ever be truly
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:2)
AJAX is certainly standardized. There's even a W3C standard being worked on that would make XMLHttpRequest official. The rest of the DHTML stuff is all part of the DOM Level 2 standard. (A standard that is several years old.) Even Microsoft supports the standard, with the exception of DOM Events. (I always have to patch their $@#$! browser on the fly to make it fully standards compliant.)
AJAX may be overhyped, but
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:2)
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:2)
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:2)
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:2, Informative)
While I agree that JavaScript is not the ideal candidate for developing any system, much less a web app it is what we are limited to. Java Applets et. al. are DOA, unsupported or don't fit within the model of web application development. For better or worse those are the breaks.
I differ with you on the presumption that AJAX is irrelevant, as recently as a few months ago I would have concurred with this notion and would have agreed that it was a new spin on some simple technologies. That was until I fou
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:2)
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:2)
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:5, Insightful)
False. The web server can return text, plan old xml (POX), or JSON or anything that can be encoded over HTTP.
To get good performance, Ajax forces you to code a front-end application using JAVASCRIPT. Now I've coded some pretty complicated Javascript stuff, but it's just not the right language for writing full-featured applications. It's barely even object oriented, weak typed, etc. And debugging it is a disaster.
False. You're mixing concepts here (performance and client scripting language). Further, EMCAScript isn't OO and shouldn't be: it's a prototype based language. And any developer tackling this problem in today's world should use one of the many freely available JS libs (Dojo, MochiKit, Prototype, etc). Hell, MochiKit has a built in debugger.
If instead you decide to have the server make all the UI decisions for you ("put this text here, that box there"), that's fine except you'll see lag anytime you do anything. Imagine trying to update an entire column of data in Ajax Spreadsheet. The server has to send down exactly what to put in each cell and do all the computations for you before you see anything.
Knock, knock, web server calling. HTML UI decisions start on the server and get modified locally by the client. This is the nature of HTML and always has been.
Google Maps has this problem - I often see white boxes, unrefreshed boxes, etc. and I'm using the latest Firefox!
Oh, lordie. You realize that Google maps doesn't use Ajax, but instead makes heavy use of IFRAMES? (last i checked, this was true). And you realize, of course, that your connection speed might be to blame?
You've painted AJAX with a pretty broad and off-base brush. Better luck explaining it to the ignorant.
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:2)
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:3, Funny)
Is it just me or is that acronym a little too accurate. pox = Syphilis [wikipedia.org]
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:2)
You're correct of course. Many developers I know are like me in how they conceptualize prototype based languages -- they tend to forget that prototype is a different approach to OO because it's so different from class based OO (and because outside of JS, it's uncommon in mainstream languages).
Thanks for keeping us all honest.
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes me laugh about many vendors in contrast to the community is that they simply don't get it. Microsoft and co think Ajax is a "style" of programming by extending and locking the client to the server. This is plain simply wrong, wrong, wrong!
Now to address to your questions:
1) First Ajax does not require XML, but relies on the Permutations pattern. The Permutations pattern is a REST style web service that says the content sent and received by the client and server depends on the needs of the client. That might be JavaScript, XML, bitmap images or even HTML.
2) Coding a front end in JavaScript is not a problem. Coding everything with JavaScript is a problem. Just like coding everything with Java is a problem. Writing a good Ajax applications means creating a client that calls a server using Web Services.
3) To address your problem you use the Infinite Data pattern that uses callbacks that sends data to the client as it received.
Again, part of the problem is that many are considering Ajax as an extension of the current Web Paradigm. Ajax is not that. Ajax is a SOA client that makes Web Service calls. Granted I will give you that companies like Microsoft confuse the issue by creating stuff that completely breaks REST, and Ajax design concepts.
If you want more information feel free to check out my site http://www.devspace.com/ [devspace.com] as I have some prototype implementations of the Ajax and REST patterns that I was talking about (inc source), and look at the Ajax QA. And if you have any further questions just send me an email and I will be more than happy to answer your questions.
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:2)
But don't let the facts muddy a good story. This *is*
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:2)
But don't let supporting evidence get in the way of fanboyism. This *is*
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:2)
Ajax Is a Flashpoint (Score:2)
You might be right, but I've spent the past 3 years migrating client applications to .NET and XmlHttp data-brokered solutions. Ajax was not a popular term when we started doing it. This is a company of 3,000 employees with many clients all over the state and all of them now have rapid web-based access to a variety of analytic tools, reports, and raw data.
There are some very compelling reasons for suffer
Re:Ajax is a flash in the pan (Score:2)
Exactly why you should try Atlas (Score:2)
We don't complain about writing GUI applications because its too much work to manipulate every different pixel on the user's screen. We have tools and a technology stack that abstract all of that for us so that we can work with widgets.
That is what Atlas is all about. It gives you the desired functionality of AJAX, without the pain normally required when dealing with the low level details (XML, extensive Javascript, etc).
You're right, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, EMCA Script is perhaps one of the most object-oriented languages in use today. Absolutely everything is an object and there are no primatives. And as for debugging, Venkma [mozilla.org] is probably one of the most powerful debugging environments I have ever used for any language or platform?
As for your comment regarding Java Applets, i
AJAX is bad (Score:2, Interesting)
1: Does anyone know of any significant javascript code which works on two different browsers without having to have conditionals based on the user agent?
2: Most AJAX applications break accessibility rules, which are law in many countries (including the UK, where I am).
3: AJAX provides another attack vector on websites. Look at the myspace worm. I know that comes down to bad programming, but still it's another chance to miss something.
4: A number of companies
that's why we need a toolkit (Score:4, Insightful)
However, from an interaction point of view, AJAX is enormously useful and a big advance over plain HTML pages. It's unfortunate that the underlying technologies are so ugly (Javascript, XML,
Re:AJAX is bad (Score:5, Insightful)
2. You can build accessibility into an AJAXified application, but it will take more work. I find that the people who care enough about accessibility on normal websites are the people who are also willing to put in the extra work making applications accessible.
3. Another attack vector? Sure, but introducing any technology introduces new risks. That doesn't mean you should dismiss it entirely. Bad code is bad code - no matter whether it's AJAX or PHP or Ruby.
4. This goes back to accessibility. If a client doesn't have Javascript at all, you need to account for that. If you're writing an app that absolutely requires Javascript, then you need to accept that some users won't be able to use the site.
5. This is the crux of your argument, I think. Some applications are dependent upon Javascript for a good reason - they aren't normal websites. The example I use is of a university that has thirty or so platform and browser combinations to support. Deploying an internal desktop app is expensive, difficult to support, etc. But a web app can be brought up on all of the supported environments - which means you can build for those and ignore anything that's unsupported (like Lynx). We're talking about interfaces which replace a desktop app - but still need comparable functionality, speed, and interfaces.
The web has always been a quickly changing landscape. AJAX is a feature on that landscape, not the future of it. Like anything else it has its valid uses and invalid uses, can be abused, and can be done poorly. But so far, none of this is a reason to dismiss it entirely.
Re:AJAX is bad (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone else pointed out, you test the function or member to see if it exists. If not, you patch the browser on the fly. The only IE specific code I have is code to patch it for DOM Events and up-to-date String functions. This is possible because you can do something like this in Javascript:
Re:AJAX is bad (Score:2)
This is where I believe XHTML (1.1 at least) has the most to offer.
When working with HTML 4 I've had to spend a huge amount of time trying to make the sit
Mythology, lol (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mythology, lol (Score:2)
Could be worse, what if they'd picked some other literary reference?
*shrug*
"Who is Bill Gates?"
Well, actually... (Score:2)
Not to muddy the waters with facts... (Score:3, Informative)
Why the un-searchable names? (Score:3, Insightful)
Access
Word
Windows
Excel
Publisher
Sequel
Contrast that with:
linux
mozilla
firefox
mysql
php
At least with these, you have a reasonable chance of finding what you're looking for without a ton of other non-related crap.
Re:Why the un-searchable names? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Why the un-searchable names? (Score:2)
Re:Why the un-searchable names? (Score:2)
I think php usually returns a bunch of bogus results.
This is so true.
Re:Why the un-searchable names? (Score:3, Interesting)
But you're right -- it does make it hard to search for many of the most popular Microsoft products. The sad thing is that Microsoft most likely chooses generic names on purpose. They want to take advantage of (embrace and extend) existing language. I
Re:Why the un-searchable names? (Score:3, Insightful)
But, often I'm looking for reviews, example code, "how-to"s, etc. People with good information don't always put a "Microsoft" in front of "Access" when they write about it. And will "Microsoft Access" turn up results for a page that only ever says, "MS Access"?
And like someone mentioned before, try doing a search for anything meangful for
The nam
Atlas? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, Here We Go (Score:3, Informative)
The number of AJAX tools that are on their way is staggering. http://www.tersus.com/ [tersus.com] is one designed for the absolute noob, and http://www.backbase.com/ [backbase.com] is also a potential option.
Re:Well, Here We Go (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Well, Here We Go (Score:2)
It may be a point that Microsoft never released any sort of available API for use outside their corporation, but they seem to have been taken off-guard by the whole popularity off it. It's not suprising that it's been until now for them to release any sort of toolkit. It
Standards Compliant (Score:2, Informative)
Try the CSS one for a real laugh
Re:Standards Compliant (Score:2)
Did you guys even read TFA??? (Score:5, Informative)
I think a bunch of people commenting read the press release and made their judgements without actually investigating how incredible the technology is. There was even the flamebait who posted something about cross browser compatibility. Well, watch the freaking demo video before you go trolling. You can find their first of many such demos here:
mms://wm.microsoft.com/ms/uifx/asp_net_atlas.wmv [wmmicrosof...etatlaswmv]
Maybe I find it amazing because I'm not that used to ASP development, but I'm thoroughly impressed how far MS has come in making developing for their platform easy. The demo I pasted above shows him making a pretty standard data grid. That part is cool, at best, to anybody familiar with ASP, and flat out amazing to anybody who's never seen ASP sites being developed. About 2/3 into the video he busts out the new Atlas code (so fast forward to there). It was maybe 3 additional ASP tags to implement full asynchronous functionality plus one more to setup a "updating..." dialog. Suddenly, a page that required refreshes on any action could add, edit, and *sort* paginated data without any refreshes.
And then he fires up the same code in Firefox and goes to show that it works exactly the same in both browsers. 3 ASP tags.
I'm sorry, but how can you blindly bash that? Sure there's equivalent technology in the works out there (such as rails), but it doesn't make this any less amazing. If there was a development platform as complete as MS's offering but based on Python/PHP, people would be pissing their pants. To ASP developers, this will make creating AJAX functionality unbelievably easy.
MS just scored major Hype 2.0 points today. But the hype isn't all unjustified. Again, go learn about this before you bash it. [asp.net]
Re:Did you guys even read TFA??? - ASTROTURFER (Score:3, Informative)
Lying astroturfer [wikipedia.org], fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as objective third party opinion.
Re:Did you guys even read TFA??? - ASTROTURFER (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nothing New (Score:2)
Watch the video very carefully and you will see this. Up to that point, everytime he does an action, the colored bar at the top blinks so you know it is doing a fast refresh. But after he tosses in Atlas, the page is no longer, in fact, reloading. He even puts in a 2 second delay at one point and then you can really see that the page is truly not refreshing.
Like I said, the first 2/3 of the v
It's like YELLING. (Score:2)
ATLAS Homepage (Score:3, Informative)
http://atlas.asp.net/default.aspx?tabid=47 [asp.net]
Cool (Score:2)
So now someone can displace Microsoft Office 12 / 2006 / Vista using Microsoft Ajax.
I like it.
MjM
Released? Or just another preview? (Score:2, Interesting)
When will they ever learn... (Score:2)
AJAX "style development." I take this to mean Microsoft isn't following standards in an attempt to hijack yet another technology. When will they ever learn?
Microsoft's talking points (Score:2)
> capabilities simply don't match those of Windows itself," Lhotka
> said. "The more you want your Web pages to act like Windows, the
> more expensive it becomes. Atlas helps ease some of that cost and
> pain, but my feeling is that ultimately Atlas is a bridge between
> simple HTML and WPF [Windows Presentation Foundation], filling an
> important niche."
I've been in his shoes
Wrong Direction? (Score:3, Insightful)
Cheers.
Greatly reduce any competition too (Score:3, Funny)
Microsoft Atlas Shrugged! (Score:4, Insightful)
My solution was to use Java, instead of client-side scripting in Javascript and VBScript. Then any browser that supports Java can run a Java servlet and it can be programmed to be easy to use. Just make sure that their JRE version matches the one we use to develop the web applications for and everything should work out. I even worked out XML transfers to be used between the corporate web server and the client web server. We only need write one version of the Java application, instead of several versions of the Javascript support for each web page. The time we would have saved on production would have allowed us to do other things. But, nooooooooooooooooo, they went with ASP.NET because Microsoft promised them the moon, and now they are making posts to Microsoft's Newsgroups asking why ASP.NET is not working as Microsoft said it would. I am just sitting back and enjoying the fireworks and relaxing and being glad I am no longer one of those programmers being lead by Managers who have no idea how technology really works.
Java Competitor (Score:3, Informative)
It's currently in alpha release.
Re:"No Micwosoft! No!"... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:"No Micwosoft! No!"... (Score:2)
Re:"No Micwosoft! No!"... (Score:2)
Re:"No Micwosoft! No!"... (Score:2)
Of course, really it should be:
"Weleathe Pwometheuth"
Re:"No Micwosoft! No!"... (Score:2)
just as I clicked submit. I just *knew* it.
Re:"No Micwosoft! No!"... (Score:2)
Re:Microsoft learning its lesson? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft learning its lesson? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Microsoft learning its lesson? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft learning its lesson? (Score:2)
Re:Microsoft learning its lesson? (Score:2)
Re:Microsoft learning its lesson? (Score:2, Interesting)
Opera is still struggling, but Firefox compatibility seems to be a priority on their new Live [live.com] services as well (btw, I like that finally someone is trying to move the search ui forward from last decade, even though it takes some getting used to..)
Re:Microsoft learning its lesson? (Score:2)
That is the second line that Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition will put on every ASP.NET 2.0 page by default. ASP.NET 1.0 and 1.1 controls rendered good code on IE and old code everywhere else. Then again, you can use ASP.NET without the server controls and use it like ASP classic or PHP.
Cheers,
Adolfo
Re:Microsoft learning its lesson? (Score:2)
Re:Key words are... (Score:2, Informative)
How about we stop trol
Re:Web 2.0!!!!!!1111ONEONEONE (Score:2)
Maybe to you, and most other non-ASP/ASP.Netters, but to them, who have equally been as "What is this Rails bullshit?" and head-in-the-sand, they can now rejoice because they can play in this new game too.
Except it's like inviting NY Yankee fans to watch baseball over if you're not a NY Yankees fan yourself...
Re:Web 2.0!!!!!!1111ONEONEONE (Score:2)
- Andrew
Re:Where's the beef? (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you completely retarded?
How this got moderated up is beyond me. It's obvious that you haven't used Atlas, much less even LOOKED at it.
The whole point of the library is to hide away the details, so XMLHttpRequest and it's ilk are tucked away neatly in the variety of external scripts that ship with Atlas.
There are only 4 or 5 controls that come with Atlas, and they're mostly non-visual anyways. The UpdatePanel is a "panel" like control that can automatically reload it's contents on a postback sent
Re:Where's the beef? (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft needs to be modded -5 bad site design. So if you go to atlas.asp.net (from the summary), does it take you to atlas? No. I was looking at the standard ASP controls [atlas.asp.net] that you can get to through the "Tutorials" link. No wonder I was confused! Atlas is actually located here [asp.net].
The "real" atlas looks m
DWR is a real, available ajax api (Score:2)
DWR handles:
- the xml http connection cross-browser
- "marshalls" between Java objects/parameters and JavaScript objects, including javascript mock-ups of Collections, beans, arrays, lists
- adds a bunch of useful JS utilities as well
Now, keeping state between the instantiation of objects is a bit of a pain, but still, this
Re:Where's the beef? (Score:3, Insightful)
MS got bitch-slappedn in the ASP days because its server-side objects (even though you're invoking them from VBScript, you're invoking COM objects) were emitting browser-detecting code and not playing nice with Not-IE, or emit Not-IE hostile JavaScript (i.e., MS' DOM model). With work, it is possible to get around this.
The r
Re:Where's the beef? (Score:3, Informative)
This is one of those times that I am actually happy to be wrong. With all the nonsense surrounding AJAX as it is, all we needed was Microsoft throwing fuel on the fire.
Re:Where's the beef? (Score:2)
The information presented was WRONG. Thankfully, I managed to provoke someone into posting a reply that set me on the right track. Now this thread records that I was wrong, and I'm happy to be wrong.
Feel free to scream and yell about all the Anti-Microsoft trolls all you want. You won't find any listeners here.
Go Ahead... (Score:2)
Actually it was pretty interesting to watch the video in comparison to all the "20 Minute Wiki" style videos that RoR has made so popular.
Re:Watch the video (Score:2)