Above all, don't forget about sticking to standards. "Ajax coding is complicated enough, so doing things in standardized ways helps ensure that you're not creating spaghetti code that's impenetrable to anyone who didn't have a hand in writing it," said Olsen.
Finally, don't forget to do lots of testing with various browser configurations to make sure that everything is working. "There still are cross-browser issues," said Karrer. "I would still say that you want to choose carefully where you use Ajax."
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Microsoft's Active X
Also of importance is ActiveX, the mainstay of many Web applications from the last decade. Many sites were sold on the coming Microsoft world domination and the growth in IE market as the sole browser for the world. Clearly, that hasn't happened, and it may be time to rip this out and become more pluralistic in your support of other browsers. Focazio said: "In many ways, we have to go Ajax, just to reach our corporate customers, because we're seeing flat-out bans on ActiveX, a pretty substantial move away from IE, and an increasing number of Mac systems." Look for one of the newer and more open solutions for presenting dynamic content, if you plan on offering additional enhancements in those places.
"Unfortunately, in the current iteration of our product, the standard was IE 5.0 and ActiveX controls," said Focazio. "This has been a big, big problem, and we're addressing it with a total rebuild. It was a big mistake."
Other Tools And Techniques
If you don't have the in-house staff and skills to deal with all this technology alphabet soup, pick your battles carefully. If you have to finger one critical component in Ajax, then start with CSS or RSS.
"Learning to write HTML in more of a CSS style approach rather than straight tables will help out in the long run. Tables send more data to the client, offer less style and control when you want to place elements at different locations on your page (with Ajax), and separate the data from the structural layout," said Good. RSS also is useful in keeping people current with a fast-changing site, such as for discussion threads, tracking price changes, and other quick-moving situations.
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