Dawn of a new developer…

Mon Dec 5

The ever-helpful Ajaxian.com recently brought my attention to this article on JavaWorld.com which discusses the great possiblities and pitfalls if the AJAX phenomenon. Basically, as Peter-Paul Koch says, who will build the new AJAX applications?

It’s a good question. After all, people with “designer” on their name-badge are generally graphics/CSS type people - more than 10 lines of any scripting language scares them. But people with a “developer” hat on generally look on JavaScript as a poor substiture for a ‘proper’ language such as PHP (or ASP, or ASP.net, or Perl, or Pyton etc etc). Gross generalisations, I know, but pretty accurate from the webheads that I know.

However there is a new breed of web developer who are taking up the challenge. Developers who write applications, but who specifically write applications for the web - taking advantage of the massive graphical possibilities of this medium. Designers who care about usability and accessibility, and whose sites aren’t hideous to look at.

It’s an exciting time.