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August 20, 2006
AJAXWorld conference
AJAXWorld conference: SYS-CON will hold a one-day "bootcamp" for modern JavaScript, alongside two days of vendor/pundit presentations, this October in Santa Clara. Dion Hinchcliffe will be leading the bootcamp. I agree with this line from the description: "'AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 2006' recognizes that, while on the one hand Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) as a category is wider and broader than just AJAX, on the other it is indisputably AJAX that has acted as the tipping point" -- once JavaScript specialists felt enabled, their initial resistance to RIAs dissipated, and conversation flourished. But I don't really agree with this part: "Burton Group defines 'Rich' Internet Applications as those that offer functionality beyond standard HTML frames and hyperlinks, the most famous examples of such functionality on the Web to date being the AJAX-based Google Maps and Gmail." Gmaps/Gmail did get buzz, but the richest thing in the first was scrolling tiled bitmaps (doesn't hold a candle to Yahoo Maps), and Gmail's text-refresh and database manipulation (weak compared to the Broadmoor handling which preceded it). You could argue that neither Gmail nor GMaps meet the actual definition of RIA, but I don't care about that issue; I'm more concerned about the definition being refitted around something which isn't all that "rich" anyway. I still like JavaScript, though -- we definitely need the range of interactivity and media-handling that the popular browsers share -- and if you're seeking to increase your JavaScript skills, then this AJAXWorld conference & bootcamp seem a good way to do it.
Posted by JohnDowdell at August 20, 2006 1:48 PM