Hell Yeah Bitch! .com

Ted says that Meebo is what’s wrong with the internet.

In AJAX development, programmers can’t be held responsible for, say, the amount of memory their giant JavaScript application uses, because hey, that’s the browser’s problem. We don’t care about the browser taking 100% of the user’s CPU to drag a window, because those Firefox & IE developers just need to get off their lazy asses and write a decent JavaScript interpreter. Well, I tell you what: if you develop desktop applications for Windows and your application uses 100% CPU when you drag a window – pack your shit, you’re going home.

I can’t say he’s wrong. AJAX is new polyester: Sure there are some great uses for it, but if you cover yourself it in you will end up looking stupid.
(via Daring Fireball)

I just completed a complete redesign of a site for my company and part of it was to create a web application that allows the user to play with a myriad of options and configure the product how the want it all while giving them a preview of their progress and a continually updated pricing list. They had something like this on their current site, but it was old, and clunky perl CGI with lots of refreshing and rebuilding after every change the user made, so I opted to go with an AJAX approach. After many changes and feature tweaking and adding, I found myself staring at a small-ish group of PHP files and one very large file of javascript. Its finished now, and seems to work well, but as I look back on this aspect of the site that seemed to be growing every day, I wonder: I should have done it in flash?

AJAX has been a great tool for the modern web designer and it has allowed the creation of even more dynamic web applications with relative ease, but at what point of complication do you drop AJAX and move to a more cohesive tool like Flash? One of the first things I heard when AJAX became vouge was the flash people screaming: “We could already do this!” and its true. Flash has always been the go-to platform for web apps of the more complicated nature, but now AJAX has cut Flash off at the knees with its ability to do things like Google Maps without having your users download the latest Flash upgrade and wait to download the app. So when does an app cross the line from being “Perfect for AJAX” to being “Wow, that sounds like a Flash app.”? Or does it have to? Is 700 lines of javascript to get an app working with AJAX still better than having to go pick up a copy of Flash MX? What about 1000 lines? 2000? If you drop that much time and effort into a cool AJAX app, are your worried about how easy it is to get a copy of the code with just a right-click?

I think it depends on many things: Your familarity with Flash (ActionScript) or AJAX (PHP/ Ruby/Perl…, CSS, XML, and JavaScript) and your time. Play to your strengths so to say. The obvious answer, I know, but I also think that AJAX, in its present form, can only take you so far. That might not be the case in a few years, but currently, for a complated app, like the one on SpreadShirt Flash seems like the best option. Couple that with the on-going issues with standards compatibility on the world’s most popular browser: Internet Explorer, and if you are going for a complicated web app targeted to everyone, Flash seems like the clear choice. For everything below those tough standards, things like Backpack, Google Maps and Yahoo! Mail (in beta), AJAX seems to be working fine. Hopefully in the future, they will become competing methods where a developer can use one or the other at anytime, like PHP and ASP. For now, it looks as though one must be able to learn both and adapt to the project at hand.

File this under trendy / weird websites.

20-goto-10.com is a website that’s navigation kind of emulates DOS. Its fun for a little bit as you play around with it but then after you try out each of the 10 commands you get tired of it. The navigation is fun, interesting and crappy to use. The visuals of the site are interesting and lame. Of course none of this is that surprising because it emulates DOS and DOS sucks. Although its a cool trick with some AJAX and CSS, its really better suited as a section of someone’s site, not the whole thing.

Check it out and l let me know what you think. Though I’m assuming you’ll agree with me because I’m awesome.

Via Digg

With the rumor, then confirmation of Google Talk in the last 24 hours, I guess the theme for today is Instant Messaging. In a effort to not break the unintentional theme of the day, I’ve got more Instant Messaging stuff for you to choke down.

JWChat is a SourceForge project that is such a cool idea I think I peed a little when I saw it.* JWChat allows Jabber based instant messenging completly via the web broswer. No client software what so ever…just the server with the client interface written in JavaScript and XHTML with a double scoop of AJAX.

Not impressed? Think of the cool things you could do with this. This could be a simple “live help” feature on a e-commerce website. Or this could be a great way to allow a client to chat with designers via the company’s existing Jabber IM network without having to download and install programs and set them up. I’m sure there are more applications for this very cool project. Any other thoughts? Have you peed a little yet?

Via: Download Squad

* Just kidding. If anyone saw me today, that wasn’t pee, that was water that I spilled.