Enough with the AJAX already
Posted : Tuesday August 26th, 2008

So recently Facebook updated (I can't even use the word upgraded here) their interface. It now has more AJAX and other JavaScript then ever before. The result of which is that I haven't seen a computer yet that didn't choke or at least gulp furiously in encountering the new site.

AJAX is a solution looking for a problem and frankly people need to give it a rest. You can do clever things with CSS and some JavaScript to be sure but when a page load consists of over 200 K of script and features alot of content loaded "on-the-fly" you have missed the boat.

Reality check one. Multiple requests mean additional resource costs to servers. Yeah, that's right. Your application is now less scalable then before, not really something you want.

Reality check two. There are in fact a lot of users in a lot of areas in the world who do not have access to high speed connections. If the site takes 15 seconds to load using a high speed connection then you've written off anyone dialing in who is going to take 4 or 5 minutes.

And another thing. Comet?. Who in the world thought this was a good idea? If you need a PUSH protocol then, oh I don't know, use a PUSH protocol. HTTP is not PUSH. Abusing HTTP does not make it PUSH either.

Tags

abuse  ajax  http  overkill 

Categories

Technical  Internet 

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