Enterprise Class Asynchronous JavaScript And XML (AJAX)

 

AJAX is a recent term (early 2005) for leveraging the communication, XML, and CSS capabilities of modern browsers via JavaScript.

Our roots in AJAX-style development date back to 1997 when we ported a 100-screen telephone ordering system from Delphi to the web. The result? An application that ran cross-platform in IE4 and Nav4, took complete phone orders client-side, and made what could only be termed "web service calls" to commit the results to an Oracle backend.

Brendan Eich, JavaScript's creator and head of the Mozilla project had this reaction:

"I am your humble servant, and in awe of what you've done with JS."

By 1999 we'd set out to create a framework for building similarly complex applications -- high-throughput mission-critical web applications -- and along the way we've learned more than perhaps any other company about the real-world requirements for "an AJAX framework".

Jon Udell says:

"Things I'd want from an AJAX toolkit include: browser independence, a high-level object model, a productive GUI builder, strong debugging, robust local storage, and autonomous interaction with remote XML-based services."

We agree with Jon, but our experience tells us any Enterprise-Class offering you'd trust your future to must also include:

• W3C standards-based authoring to avoid vendor lock-in and increase interoperability,
• multiple widget and server API integration to support heterogenous environments,
• standalone operation plus synchronization to support an increasingly mobile workforce,
• end-to-end data security capability using an acknowledged security standard,
• localization of content to support a diverse world-wide user community,
• standards-based support for integrating real-time data, IM, and workflow events,
• a robust unit testing framework to ensure quality throughout the application lifecycle.

Oh, and it should combine all those features and be available under an OSI-approved open source license ;).

We started building toward that goal 6 years ago and we're proud to say we met every one of those requirements. The result is something that picks up where AJAX leaves off and where your real application requirements begin. We call it TIBET™.

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