Back in the early days of the web, we asked the web to do pretty simple things such as receive submitted form data, and the Javascript whatsits and whosits were iffy and not cross browser. The early Javascript language (or ECMAScript, if you want to be a purist) was lame. To top it off, a lot of browsers in those days didn’t even support it. Oh, and did I mention the debugging tools were nonexistent. I remember debugging my early javascripts by commenting out most of it, then moving the comments down until I could see where it died. Oh yes there was hair tearing.
Then enter Ajax, and more importantly, Google, building major map gizmos in Ajax (which relies on Javascript.) And suddenly Javascript was legitimate. Now thanks to Ajax we can have controls and widgets on web apps just like a desktop app, and the curmudgeons who fail to enable it are doomed to a rather dull experience. By their reasoning I’d be safer if I never left my house, but dang it, you can’t cut yourself off from the world just because something might happen.
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