Simple Ajax

I've been at a couple of conferences recently, and one of the hot topics that everyone is talking about is "Web 2.0". The great thing about these cool buzzwords is that they mean different things to everyone - but "Web 2.0" generally implies web sites that provide a richer, more interactive experience. In turn, one of the technologies that is used to provide this experience is Ajax (Asynchronous Javascript and XML). Ajax is not new, the technologies have actually been around for many years, but the pattern has recently been popularized by modern browsers and high profile applications such as Google Maps, GMail, etc.

AJAX is not a framework or library, it is an application pattern (although many frameworks are emerging to help, such as Dojo). An Ajax enabled page uses Javascript to send an XML request to call back to the server, the server asynchronously completes the request and sends back results, and then more Javascript in the page updates some parts of the page (rather than refreshing the entire page).

The problem is that developing AJAX based applications is hard - it requires writing complex Javascript and DHTML, and the asynchronous nature of the pattern further complicates debugging. There are also a series of other problems that have solutions - but are easier to get wrong, than they are to get right: Making the browser's 'back' button work is tough; Javascript has a tendency to leak memory; you must test your code on many browser variants, etc. As noted, frameworks that will help are starting to emerge, most notably Dojo - but they are still immature, and still require that you write JavaScript code in your page.

WebSphere and RAD have supported JSF (Java Server Faces) based applications for several releases now, and the combination of JSF and the JWL component library we ship offers a powerful combination that simplifies the development of applications. What's new is that RAD v7 has introduced some common AJAX behaviors into our JSF component library; you can now provide capabilities such as scrolling data tables with no page refresh, dynamic menus, and entry fields that support type ahead. The nice part is that none of this function requires you (the developer) to write any JavaScript - the bulk of the function is encapsulated in the JWL component library, and the tiny snippets that are required can be generated for you by RAD. In turn, this means you get to avoid most of the problems listed above - but still provide the enhanced interaction that people are starting to expect from modern web pages.

JSF based pages can co-exist quite happily with "normal" JSP and HTML pages, so there is no requirement for you to make a huge investment and redo your entire site. Instead, you can update just the pages that you wish to modernize, and provide the basic interaction patterns that are the hallmark of "Web 2.0". There are several resources available to help you understand the new capabilities, but a couple of articles on developer works provide a good starting point. The first one is "JSF and Ajax: Web 2.0 application made easy" and provides a general overview, and a second article titled "Improve the usability of Web applications with type-ahead input fields" walks you through adding typeahead to a JSF based page.

As Ajax continues to mature, frameworks such as Dojo will continue to add value to the development of advanced web pages - but the capability that's available in RAD v7 and WAS 6.1 today is more than enough to allow you to provide your customers with a modern, interactive site, without forcing your developers to go through a painful development process.

Tim Francis