What do you think about projects like Script#? Will it have a future? Check out Nikhil Kothari’s blog http://www.nikhilk.net/ScriptSharpPastPresentFuture.aspx
Firebug’s cool and all but it’s not really a ‘debugger’ in any meaningful sense. Hasn’t anybody used Venkman?
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/venkman/
“JavaScript is a hack to make the pages dynamic Ajax is a set of hacks built on Javascript to make it work “properly” … sometimes” - Jaster
@Jaster: What are you going on about? Its hard to take your comment seriously it is so filled with inaccuracy.
“AJAX is a set of hacks built on top of Javascript”, really what!?
Its a term used for a technique where a combination of languages (Javascript + XML) is used to create more responsive web applications.
Even tho the X in AJAX stands for XML it has also become the common name for this sort of technique (even if you use JSON instead of XML etc)
But it is most definitely not a ‘a set of hacks built on Javascript to make it work properly’ - What I think you are referring to is a Javascript library/framework (like prototype) which includes AJAX helper methods but whose main purpose is to provide consistent methods for performing common tasks with Javascript without the worry of cross-browser issues.
Oh and btw Javascript does ‘work properly’ its just some browsers handle it better than others…
Average people don’t know the difference between the desktop and the browser, and now after a few years of the web experience they want the browser to act like the desktop. Just showing them a map isn’t good enough any more. The map has to zoom, has to be able to be interactive, etc.
Therefore, the existing browser is dead in my opinion.
Technologies like Ajax, Javascript, just a bandaid. The solution is to evolve the browser into a virtual desktop and come up with a standard based libraries to what you can do in the virtual desktop. It like VMWare, but instead of an O/S, it’s a window to the web, or a framework for the web. Whatever you want to call it, it’s not a browser anymore with plugins to watch movies, etc.
Once this is done, you will be able to construct any type of application for the web, just like you do for the desktop. However, applications in the virtual space don’t touch the base machine. Therefore, your registry doesn’t become infected with spyware, no more dowloading conrols to your machine (still download in the the virtual space), no more propertiary scripting languages like VBScript, Javascript, JScript or browser support or any of that nonsense. Everything happens in the virtual machine and there is a boundary between the virtual world and your physical machine.
It’s amazing to think after 10+ years of web application we are still scripting solutions for it.