JavaScript abuse?

[hcssdk]

Hello everybody,

What do you think about idea of using JavaScript to berry application
logic. In this model server works only if needed to store data or run
transactions. Client is your webbrowser and entire UI and application
logic is written in JavaScript. Dont confuse it with most common AJAX
use when application logic still sits on the server and JavaScript just
fills in the fields.

Good things
- You dont have to worry about request-response nature of the HTTP and
use excessively complicated frameworks J2EE/.NET etc.
- Performance of hardware and browsers is sufficient to handle pretty
UI-intensive apps.
- ?

Bad things
- ?

And as a followup:
Does anybody know of any JavaScript UI frameworks structured similarly
to Swing/AWT/MFC?

What do you think?
Alex

[Martyr2]

Well the idea behind AJAX is to move most of the logic to the client
and take stress off making calls to the server. You want most of the
logic to control the GUI, basic validations, and some of the business
rules on the client. Calls to the server would be to store data or run
the transactions according to business rules as you suggested.

Right now people are only scratching the surface with AJAX, but what
you describe is the principle behind it.

The bad things about it is:

- Needs to be cross browser/platform compatible with as many browsers
as possible (which tends to be a bit more code)
- Tends to be a bit more code heavy on the client side I find to
implement business rules.
- JavaScript is a script, not as extensive as some server side
languages like PHP
- Making sure clients are always running the most recent version of
Javascript and not cached

Of course there are ways around of each of these problems which is why
AJAX is beginning to take off. They are just things you have be
cautious of when implementing such a solution.

As for the UI frameworks, there are a few out there, but I haven't used
any of them yet. Like I said, the whole idea of AJAX being used as a
framework is pretty new even though the idea of AJAX altogether is an
old one. I have seen them around but can't think of the names right
now, sorry. I am sure you can find them through Google.

:)

[hcssdk]

What's really tempting is that it makes mid-size application UI
development is sooo easy and improoves user experience if its done
right. Lately I have seen many examples of pure JavaScript apps
handling alot of data with acceptable performance. Things like
http://www.logperspective.com/Dita.html, www.gotapi.com and others show
that it is possible.

And what happened with XUL. Did it die altogether?

[Tony]

hc****@yahoo.com wrote:

And what happened with XUL. Did it die altogether?

Didn't the Ghostbusters kill it?