The Eclipse community has accepted the AJAX Toolkit Framework (ATF) Project as a project proposal, to provide tooling support for AJAX. The framework is supposed to provide a basis for building tools for various AJAX projects (Dojo, Zimbra, and OpenRico are mentioned specifically) as modules under Eclipse.

The framework as proposed will have two majour components: ATF Tools, which focus on JavaScript editing, debugging, and inspection, and the ATF Personality Framework, which focuses on specific API support.

As the proposal suggests, typical use will involve using the ATF Personality Framework as a basis to provide support for a specific AJAX toolkit.

Finally someone is taking the whole AJAX thing seriously, without charging for it...
I especially like part 9.2, it's good to see big players here and specifically Zend (PHP) which means this hopefully will not be Java-only framework. Good work.

Finally someone is taking the whole AJAX thing seriously, without charging for it...I especially like part 9.2, it's good to see big players here and specifically Zend (PHP) which means this hopefully will not be Java-only framework. Good work.

I like to joke that good PHP developers are hard to find because they are all busy writing discussion board applications to support Java developers. ;)

This sounds promising but I would like to see Java evolve into a powerful RAD language like PHP while preserving the middle-tier robustness of J2EE.

If Zend is on board for this project, perhaps my hopes will be fulfilled. They sit on the JSR-223 (Scripting for the Java Platform) expert group and PHP is the reference implementation for that spec.

I like to joke that good PHP developers are hard to find because they are all busy writing discussion board applications to support Java developers. ;)

Perhaps if the discussion board app was written by *good* PHP developers (or good Java developers, for that matter) they'd be done by now.

I suppose one other thing driving discussion boards to PHP is that free servlet hosting is a bit harder to come by.

Yeah, about that. Why isn't "java cheap hosting" is out there? All you basically need is a app server (JBoss) and JDK installed. How expensive can it be? I guess I don't know something...

Yeah, about that. Why isn't "java cheap hosting" is out there? All you basically need is a app server (JBoss) and JDK installed. How expensive can it be? I guess I don't know something...

Hey, I think you just started a business plan.

Yeah, about that. Why isn't "java cheap hosting" is out there? All you basically need is a app server (JBoss) and JDK installed. How expensive can it be? I guess I don't know something...

Hey, I think you just started a business plan.

Well I guess someone else already did: http://www.myjavaserver.com/

Yeah, about that. Why isn't "java cheap hosting" is out there? All you basically need is a app server (JBoss) and JDK installed. How expensive can it be? I guess I don't know something...

My guess is that you have to either run each webapp in a separate JVM (resource intensive) or put them all in a single JVM, in which case one app can easily bring the whole server down - and every other app with it.

If you need an Ajax - Java framework now , then I've done up a quick analysis of what's available here.

For those of you going to JavaONE (I unfortunately won't be) that are interested in some of the coolest AJAX technology out there, you should go see the technical session: TS-3376 by Bruce Johnson at Google.

I worked with Bruce and his partner Joel when they were developing this technology as a startup, and Google subsequently bought them (that story is pretty cool in itself)...

Their technology was awesome - translating Java into browser-indepedent JavaScript on the fly - allowing you to debug the source Java language in your browser...setting breakpoints, and running the JavaScript in an IE5 emulator...all integrated into Eclipse. This was over a year ago, when it was just the two of them.

Who knows what they've accomplished in the past 14 months with the money of Google behind them.

I think it will end up being a significant offerring in the marketplace.

Best Regards,
Gary B.

Now try this one:

Can we all stop thinking/talking about AJAX for 10 minutes ? What ? You see ? It's a disease !

This is the most comprehensive Ajax-related proposal that I have come across so far. It is very ambitious but I eagerly await its implementation.

What pleases me the most is the inclusion of and the strong role for the Mozilla browser and its various development tools. This is probably one of the most under-/unrated software tools around. It has been crying out for a long time for a framework to be built around it.

Integration is bound to make Ajax development easier by making it less 'clunky' than it is at the moment.