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CNET: Last hurrah for PC-based software?
JavaJones:
AJAX actually works by transferring *more* of the load to the client-side. :D
- Oshyan
Renegade:
AJAX actually works by transferring *more* of the load to the client-side. :D
-JavaJones (October 16, 2006, 09:34 PM)
--- End quote ---
Good point!
broken85:
JavaJones,
AJAX is able to work BECAUSE it transfers the load to the client side; current browser technology can't dynamically change data efficiently without a client side script to actually change the data in the browser. That sounds like more of a limitation than a feature.
It works by transferring small amounts of data between the server and client... essentially running a dynamic app from the server and then displaying it in the client. Without that you're limited to something like ActiveX, or static pages. JavaScript IS the client side.
With current technology I don't see any way to run such applications strictly from the server side since the client side is what displays the data. Seems to me AJAX is the closest thing to it until some truly synchronous methods become accessible without OS-specific controls.
broken85:
Oh yeah, and Flash is another example... loaded from the server but it still has to load whatever it's displaying on the client side... since it's got its own format it goes way beyond JavaScript, but it's essentially similar to Ajax-like technologies in that it gets all of the data from the server and then incorporates it into the client display dynamically (often via XML, just like Ajax).
I'm speaking of this apart from the obvious client-side events such as smooth animation, etc. However the data to create those animations and everything else Flash draws comes from the server and is rendered in the client.
JavaJones:
That's just the point though. With both Ajax and Flash the *data* is loaded from the server-side (this is what servers are good at - serving data) and the *processing* goes on client-side. Although this is not directly rebutting anything to do with the original topic of the thread, the mention of thin clients and whatnot sparked that response. If you had a "fatter" client with servers just dealing with data, and used this to power this future "web 2.0 as operating system" model then maybe it could work, it just seems massively inefficient.
- Oshyan
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