Is JavaScript the Essence of AJAX?
["What Is AJAX?" Part 1 by Rob Gonda, Vol. 7, issue 9]

Some people will claim that they can provide you with AJAX functionality without writing a single line of JavaScript; I disagree.

Surely JavaScript is the whole "essence" of AJAX?
-JSrocks It is indeed. AJAX involves combining any server scripting language with client side, hence, JavaScript. I can see how you could probably automate two related select boxes without writing JavaScript, but certainly not an RIA or Web 2.0 application.
-Rob Gonda

It's been possible to use the concept behind AJAX since browsers introduced the XMLHttpRequest function in 1999.

But what was then the disconnect that prevented developers from making use of it until Jesse James Garrett kick-started the whole AJAX boom by giving it a "name"?
-queZZtion

Perhaps, nothing really prevented anyone from using it; Jesse James Garrett just had to come up with the idea/concept. By the way, don't miss Jesse at the Ajax Seminar (www.ajaxseminar.com)
-Rob Gonda

Developing AJAX Applications
["AJAX: Making the HTML User Experience Almost As Pleasant as Flash: Part 2" by Rob Gonda, Vol. 7, issue 10]
As AJAX gives Web applications a fresh look, the rising cost of developing AJAX applications is challenging its way to success.

That's the reason we founded the ZK project: to make AJAX transparent to app developers.
-Jim

First of all, I really disagree on the rising cost of developing AJAX applications. Au contraire, the cost is going down as more and more developers get into it.

Although I usually don't check seeding or spam, I decided to check the ZK project.

It definitely helps with dhtml and look and feel, but it does not automate AJAX at all; it makes it actually more difficult. It seems that in order to make it work, you need to add your Java server-side code within your view. That will make maintenance really tedious.
-Rob Gonda

"First of all, I really disagree on rising cost of developing AJAX applications."

Adding an AJAX feature means an extra task, no matter how simple it is. It gets worse when we add more code to the client. It means you might have to replicate business logic to clients. It also means you have to maintain two copies of codes.

"It definitely helps with dhtml and look and feel, but it does not automate AJAX at all, it makes it actually more difficult. It seems like that in order to make it work you need to add your Java server-side code within your view. That will make maintenance really tedious."

Whether to embed codes in the view is up to developers, not the framework itself. It is designed to speed up prototyping and customization. If MVC or other design patterns are required, developers need only to provide a map between components to the real class they want.

On the other hand, traditional AJAX apps required developers to embed JavaScript into HTML pages.

AJAX has different meanings to different people. For us, it means a technology to enable a rich user interface that communicates with the back-end server. What ZK does is to abstract the interaction and communication to Java level and make to the server side, not JavaScript or decorated HTML, not at the client that you are used to.
-Jim