For those of you interested, I'll be speaking at the AjaxWorld East 2008 conference in New York. I'll be looking at the messy underbelly of converting an old Web 1.0 application into a Web 2.0 powerhouse using GWT. From the conference blurb

The pressure is on to keep pace with Web 2.0 entrants into the marketplace. Rewriting is expensive; adding AJAX widgets results in a complex, unmaintainable application. Both require you to hire scarce JavaScript developers. Google Web Toolkit - the SDK that allows you to write AJAX interfaces in Java - enables your Java developers to layer a desktop-like interface on top of your web app. Learn to analyze the service profile of your application, to change HTML views into XML or JSON services, and to resist opening security holes by putting state and control flow logic into the client.

That's right, I've got 45 minutes to describe GWT, run through the steps for analyzing an existing webapp, give a quick demo, then talk about security and other concerns. No sweat.


The Next Big RIA Service: Sprout
by Yakov Fain

I was preparing my slides for the upcoming AJAXWorld Conference in New York next Tuesday, where I compare different technologies for creating rich Internet applications.  The slides for the big players on the market are ready, but I was looking for one more – something that would fall into a category of cool RIA. And I found one.

These days RIA tools are created mainly to two groups of people: Web Developers and UI Designers. The second group is represented by creative people who can design screens but are not programmers. Big guys like Adobe are trying to come with tools that would bring together these two groups of people who currently live in different planets. For example, Adobe is going to release Thermo Beta this Summer – it allows designers to drag and drop and Flex code will be automatically generated based on their creative movements. Many people can’t wait to get their hands dirty with Thermo. In my opinion, it’s a useful tool for creating a small application or initial prototyping of an enterprise Flex application, but when I’ll get this code from the Web designer, I’ll start ripping it apart and refactoring anyway. The first version of Thermo will not allow designers to work with it after a developer has refactored the code.  Microsoft also creates very good tools like Expression Design and and Expression Blend that bring together designers and developers.

Speaking In New York Next Week for AJAXWorld and Web Design Meetup
by Andre Charland

March 14th, 2008