LOGIN | REGISTER NOW | SUBSCRIBE
 

AJAX gurus head new Mozilla developer tools lab


By Alex Handy
Email    print   
November 6, 2008 —  For AJAX users in the know, Ajaxian.com is near the top of the list of helpful sites on the cutting edge. Perhaps that's why the Mozilla Foundation has recruited Ajaxian co-founders Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith to spearhead the next generation of Mozilla Web development tools.

In a recent statement to SD Times, Almaer and Galbraith outlined possible areas of focus for the new Mozilla developer tools lab. Many of them center on propagating and fostering support for open Web standards.

The pair began by describing the current woes of Web developers: “Because the open Web platform consists of a diverse ecosystem of browsers from different companies and organizations, developers are quite often forced to correlate a variety of inconsistent documentation from many sources in order to answer basic questions. (This problem has been compounded by the emergence of many popular w:st="on"AJAX frameworks, each of which add their own inconsistent documentation to the mix.) By order of contrast, proprietary platforms like Sun's Java, Microsoft's .NET and Adobe's Flex all have excellent and [organized] documentation.”

Almaer and Galbraith wrote that they are “now looking at this systematically to see what more can be done to improve the situation for everyone, and as comprehensively as possible. We want to answer the question, ‘How can we work with all the documentation required for open Web developers to be productive and bring it together in one place as a cohesive set of information?’ ”

Another problem, according to Almaer and Galbraith, is the relatively steep learning curve associated with open Web standards. “The core strength of the open Web is its very openness, the ability of developers worldwide to jump in and contribute,” they wrote. “Yet we feel the barriers to participation are often significant. Each open-source project works differently, and it's often not clear how newcomers can contribute code that is eventually accepted.”

Despite the pair’s confidence that new tools can address those problems, when and how such tools will surface remain to be seen. “While at this stage we haven't narrowed our focus to any specific solutions to these problems (or even decided that these are the problems we'll wind up tackling at first), these are the issues that most loom on our radar,” wrote Almaer and Galbraith. “We're anxious to talk to Web developers to get more of their perspective too.

“The browsers are picking up a lot of momentum and adding a lot of new functionality to the Web these days. Now it is time for the tools to catch up.”




Related Search Term(s): AJAX, Web development, Mozilla


Share this link: http://sdt.bz/33030
 
Most Read Latest News Blog Resources
Zeichick’s Take: Radio moves from analog waveforms to digital packets
Streaming radio highlights the need for streaming applications to be designed to take up as little bandwidth as possible
Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans
Appcelerator Acquires Cocoafish to Add Instant Mobile Cloud Capabilities to its Industry Leading Titanium Platform
Appcelerator Offers Messaging, Social, Location and Storage Mobile Cloud Services to All Mobile App Publishers
ComponentOne Releases a Collection of 40+ UI Widgets Powered by HTML5 and jQuery
ComponentOne has announced the 2012 release of Wijmo: a kit of UI widgets for HTML5 and jQuery development
Digg!  Digg
Reddit  Reddit
Slashdot  Slashdot
Share on facebook  Facebook
Share on Twitter  Twitter


Add comment


Name*
Email*  
Country     


  • Comment
Loading




close
NEXT ARTICLE
Book Excerpt: The Tangled Web: A Guide to Securing Modern Web Applications
From Part III: A Glimpse of Things to Come Read More...
 
 
 
 
News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>


   

 
 

Download Current Issue
FEBRUARY 2012 PDF ISSUE

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Want to subscribe?


 
blogs tab
Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.
02/09/2012 02:16 PM EST

Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.
02/07/2012 11:57 AM EST

RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!
02/04/2012 01:57 PM EST

GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
02/03/2012 12:17 PM EST

Facebook claims hacker cred
Facebook's SEC S-1 filing form includes a short essay on the Hacker Way by Mark Zuckerberg himself.
02/02/2012 08:26 AM EST

Ryan Dahl steps down
Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js, steps back from his position as gatekeeper for the project.
02/01/2012 04:58 PM EST

 
Events calendar tab
Cloud Connect
2/13/2012 to 2/16/2012
Santa Clara
TechWeb

SPTechCon: The SharePoint Technology Conf.
2/26/2012 to 2/29/2012
San Francisco
BZ Media

RSA Conf.
2/27/2012 to 3/2/2012
San Francisco
RSA

IBM Pulse Conf.
3/4/2012 to 3/7/2012
Las Vegas
IBM Tivoli

Game Developer Conf.
3/5/2012 to 3/9/2012
San Francisco
TechWeb