Articles by Coach Wei

AJAX & RIA Journal Special: Results of OpenAjax Alliance's Browser Feature Wish List

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 05:45:00 EDT

What does the AJAX community want from future browsers? How are these different requests prioritized? Web developers have done amazing things with AJAX for both Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 applications, but what barriers need to be removed to enable the next generation of browser-based innovations? The future of AJAX runtime environments matters more than ever today.

A Brief History of AJAX

Mon, 19 May 2008 13:00:00 EDT

On April 30, 1993, CERN announced that the World Wide Web would be free for anyone to use and the Web took off, jumping from 130 Web sites in 1993, to over 100,000 in 1996, to 11.5 billion sites in 2005. The main protocol used on the Web is the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It's a patented open Internet request/response protocol intended to publish and receive HTML pages.

Will "Rich Internet" Become Rich Man's Internet?

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 04:45:00 EDT

The Web is one of the most important technological as well as social/cultural developments in our life. Its global impact is rooted in its openness and its capability to evolve on a democratic basis. However, I have concerns. I'm concerned about the significant corporate interests driving towards 'unweb'. Not to pick on video, but to use video as an example. Video, the most recent hotspot on the web, largely relies on Adobe's Flash technology. Not that Flash is not good. On the contrast, it is well designed and implemented as a technology. It enabled the possibility of Internet Video Selling-Entertainment-Online Jan-08 and we should be thankful. However, it is a platform controlled by a single entity (Adobe). We should trust our future in the collective will of the society instead of the goodwill of a benevolent dictator. Another example, the area that I've dedicated ten years of my life to, Rich Internet Application, is causing some great concern to me. Adobe is pushing Flex (Adobe's markup, Adobe's runtime platform), Microsoft is pushing Sliverlight (Microsoft's markup and Microsoft's runtime platform)and Sun is pushing for JavaFX (yet another scripting language invented from scratch - why?). Will Rich Internet become 'rich man's Internet'? Will Rich Internet become the onset of 'unweb'?

Why Do 'Cool Kids' Choose Ruby or PHP to Build Websites Instead of Java?

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:30:00 EDT

Here is a question that I have been pondering on and off for quite a while: Why do 'cool kids' choose Ruby or PHP to build websites instead of Java? I have to admit that I do not have an answer. Why do I even care? Because I am a Java developer. Like many Java developers, I get along with Java well. Not only the language itself, but the development environments (Eclipse for example), step-by-step debugging helper, wide availability of libraries and code snippets, and the readily accessible information on almost any technical question I may have on Java via Google. Last but not least, I go to JavaOne and see 10,000 people that talk and walk just like me.

Announcing a $50K Web 2.0 Venture Fund With Microsoft

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:00:00 EDT

Despite the web 2.0 hype and growth of firms of Y-Combinator, the corporate venture investment has not evolved at all. Corporations in general are having a hard time adjusting to the web 2.0 age. When I brought up this idea to Microsoft executives a year ago during a discussion, apparently this is something they have been thinking about for a while. The industry's shifting landscape, ranging from the rise of Google, Facebook, to the rise of RIA and Software-as-a-service, is causing a lot of changes within Microsoft. However, it is time to make some changes to the investment model as well. The $150M investment into Facebook was a bold move. However, I believe Razorspeed is going to work out better for Microsoft over the long term.

OpenAjax F2F Meeting in New York City

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 07:30:00 EDT

The F2F meeting of OpenAjax Alliance at NYC on March 21st worked out really well in my oppinion. As a result of the last F2F meeting in October 2007, we formed a new task force called 'Runtime Advocacy Task Force' at OpenAjax. The goal of Runtime Task Force is to collect a 'wish list' from the Ajax community, get the communities involved, have active dialogs and engage browser vendors, with the goal of fixing the issues that have bugged down Ajax developers and help build a better web. So far we've collected a list of 29 issues, of which we hope to open up to the general public for review/comments/voting.

Possible Solutions to Web Security Issues

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:15:00 EDT

The 'Same Origin Policy' is at the core of browser's security model. Under the 'Same Origin Policy', a web resource can only interact with another web resource if and only if both resources are from the same origin. However, 'Cross site scripting' and 'cookie' both brings security challenges in this security model.

The Culture Root for Web 2.0 and Barrack Obama

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST

As a web 2.0 guy who blogs on 'Direct from Web 2.0', I did not see this coming. In fact, my preferences were Mitt Romney from the republican side (maybe McCain too) and Hilary Clinton from the democrat side. I think the three of them (Mitt Romney, John McCain and Hilary Clinton) will do better in the oval office than other candidates. Just like how venture capitalists pick CEOs for their portfolio companies, I put 'experience' and -track record of execution' very high in my assessment. If you are conducting a CEO search for your company, would you pick someone who just graduated from Harvard executive MBA, or someone who has been there, done that and has been doing that for the entire life?

How Hard is AJAX Coding? The "Oh My God" Moment

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 12:30:00 EST

People say Ajax is hard...and this may be why. I spent some time playing with Bob Buffone's newest work on Ajax over the last few days. Bob built an xModify processor that runs on either jQuery, Dojo or Mootools. The xModify processor is powerful but quite lightweight (10KB without gzip). There will be more news on xModify but that is not the point of this post. Anyway, I wrote a little app that uses his stuff. The entire application uses three JavaScript file: jQuery library (70KB), xModify processor (10KB) and my little JavaScript file (2KB).

AJAX Coding - Is This a Little Too Much Hack for Prototype.js?

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 09:45:00 EST

Prototype.js is a popular AJAX toolkit for web developers. I have enjoyed using it despite the complaints I heard from people about how Prototype.js does too much JavaScript hacking that breaks other people's code. One of the common complaints is that Prototype.js adds methods to built-in JavaScript objects (such as String object). I tend to brush such complaints aside: there is nothing wrong per se by adding some methods to JavaScript objects via standard permitted means.

OpenAjax Hub 1.0 and InteropFest

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 02:45:00 EDT

OpenAjax Alliance has made substantial progress in the last 12 months since its inception. The cornerstone is OpenAjaxHub 1.0 (OaaHub 1.0). OaaHub 1.0, an open source project under Apache V2 license, focuses on interoperability - it enables different Ajax components to inter-operate with each other using a 'pub/sub' mechanism while these Ajax components may have no knowledge of each other at all. OaaHub 1.0 is extremely small (6KB, uncompressed, and with comments) but it is powerful and extremely useful for building Ajax applications.

Dojo Grid and Open Source Community Contribution

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:15:00 EDT

This is interesting not only because it bridges a gap in Dojo toolkit. Dojo has been the most credible offering in the Ajax marketplace so far (there are a few other good ones too, such as jQuery and EXT, though they have different design focus from Dojo). A lot of customers have been asking for a high quality 'grid' widget from Dojo. TurboAjax guys already developed one based on Dojo 0.4. It looks fairly good(though there are obvious areas for improvement, see my wishlist below). So instead of trying to re-invent the wheel, why not try to work something out with TurboAjax folks so that the entire Dojo community can benefit from their work, while enaling the recognition of TurboAjax effort and enabling them to continue to enhance their work?

The Best Story Ever In Software - Sun Changes Ticker to JAVA

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 11:45:00 EDT

This is going to be a very short blog because the story itself is too good to add any comments: Sun Microsystems Changes Ticker to JAVA. On August 23, 2007, 'Sun announced Thursday that it would retire its SUNW moniker on Nasdaq and replace with JAVA effective Monday. The software known as Java has become Sun's best known brand since it was its introduction 12 years ago.'

JavaFX and Rich Internet Applications

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 19:30:00 EDT

Quite a few people are asking me what I think of Sun's JavaFX announcement. It is funny and we saw this coming - Who wouldn't anticipate Sun to make some big announcement at JavaOne? People were predicting the announcement is going to be 'open sourcing Java' - Oh, no, that was last year :-)

OpenAjax CommunicationHub Problem Definition

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 12:30:00 EDT

OpenAjax Alliance has been growing well with over 70 members. The initial OpenAjaxHub received immediate community response - most are positive and a few responses were negative but turned out to be very helpful. Over ten Ajax offerings demonstrated support for OpenAjaxHub already (such as Apache XAP, Dojo, Nexaweb AjaxClient, Tibco, etc). Addressing the feedback received so far, the upcoming release of OpenAjaxHub 1.0 in the next few months is going to be really good - tiny footprint (under 5KB), focused on interoperability and event propagation between Ajax widgets and highly functional.

Situational Application@MIT CIO Symposium

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 19:45:00 EDT

Today is the fourth annual MIT CIO Symposium. The weather could have been better and parking could have been much better (my house is within 25 minutes walking distance from MIT. I drove instead and spent 30 minutes looking for parking) - but the conference is fairly well attended. My JavaOne style outfit stands out a little bit among the business attire crowd at CIO Symposium - but, hey, CIOs need developers, in particular, a developer who just came back from JavaOne and just learned about JavaFX, right?

"Web 2.0 Over and Out" - What Are You Smoking?

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 17:45:00 EDT

I am not as familiar with west coast VCs and have not run into Peter Rip, a general partner at Crosslink Capital. In general, looking at his blog EarlyStageVC, Peter is quite well informed and intelligent which is why I was highly surprised to see a post from him on March 21 2007 saying 'Web 2.0 Over and Out'. My immediate reaction is 'what are you smoking?'

Real-World AJAX Book Preview: Window Event Handling

Tue, 22 May 2007 11:00:00 EDT

The JavaScript file handles various window-related events such as resizing the window in response to mouse-drag events on the four edges, maximizing the window or closing the window in response to mouse-click events, or moving the window in response to mouse-drag events on the title bar. On the other side, the JavaScript file also fires window events to the toolkit's event management system so that if a listener is registered for a certain window event, the listener can be called.

Real-World AJAX Book Preview: The Code

Mon, 21 May 2007 11:00:00 EDT

The AjaxWord client consists of JavaScript and HMTL code. The application's user interface is defined in HTML. Client-side logic written in JavaScript defi nes the behavior of the user interface by leveraging a generic JavaScript/DHTML toolkit that's built from scratch. From a Model-View-Controller perspective, the HTML files are 'Views' and the JavaScript code acts as 'Controllers.'

Real-World AJAX Book Preview: AjaxWord: An Open Source Web Word Processor

Sun, 20 May 2007 10:00:00 EDT

AjaxWord (www.ajaxword.com) is an open source Web-based word processor. It closely mimics Microsoft Word in both look-and-feel and functionality. The application was initially written between 1997 and 1999 using JavaScript/DHTML on the client side with ASP on the server side. It was released on the Web in 2000.

Adobe Open Sourcing Flex a Sign of Desperation?

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 09:30:00 EDT

Adobe sent out a press release titled 'Adobe to Open Source Flex'. Is that so? Dana Blankenhorn from ZDNet says this is A sign of desperation from Adobe...Is that so? After reading the press release a few times, the title 'to Open Source Flex' seems to be misleading a little bit. Adobe is NOT open sourcing Flex. Adobe is only open sourcing a part of Flex, only the part that will help Flex adoption without giving away revenue source(side note: nothing wrong with this, but just thought it would be helpful to have it clarified).

Dojo Footprint and AJAX Performance Recommendation

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 19:15:00 EDT

AJAX is flying high and AJAX toolkits are certainly of big help. However, I do hear from people in the community complain about the size of various Ajax toolkits. A lot of AJAX toolkits requires hundreds of kilobytes of download, sometime even over megabytes. Dylan Schiemann from Dojo Foundation/SitePen wrote a fairly good blog entry in response to clarify questions related to download size and performance etc.

Scratching My Head at AJAXWorld

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:30:00 EDT

AJAXWorld is a great conference that hundrends of people gathered here at RooseVelt Hotel in NYC. You can see and hear the excitement around this new paradigm of computing. But once in while, there are things that are quite amusing. Java vs. Microsoft WPF: It was great to catch up with Richard Monson-Haefel here at AJAXWorld Conference & Expo. Richard is one of the leading analysts that I have a lot of respect for. Richard told me that Douglas Crockford mentioned in his morning keynote session that Ajax, Flash and WPF are three leading technologies for client applications. When someone asked him about Java, Douglas said ?Java is a little too late?. This makes people scratch their heads: Java has been on the client side for more than ten years. WPF is not even here yet. And you are saying ?Java is a little too late??

AjaxWord: An Open Source Web Word Processor

Sun, 18 Mar 2007 14:00:00 EDT

Mobile AJAX for Workers on the Edge

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 18:45:00 EST

The number of mobile workers globally will soon be more than double the total U.S. population, according to predictions by another analyst firm, IDC Corp. IDC has predicted that in two years there will be 878 million mobile workers linked to their corporate headquarters by notebook PCs, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and the already ubiquitous cell phone.

The Business Value of Web 2.0 for Enterprises

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 16:30:00 EST

Corporate IT has always been centered on application development and maintenance. Each evolution of computing, from mainframe to client/server to web 1.0, brings dramatically improved efficiency, significantly lowered costs and new business opportunities. Web 2.0 is not different either. The web 2.0 technology stack offers real, tangible, and measurable benefits to enterprises as a better way to build, deploy and maintain enterprise IT solutions, resulting in better user productivity, lower operations costs and reduced development and maintenance costs:

Real-World AJAX Book Preview: Some Classic Examples

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 10:00:00 EST

Ever since the term AJAX was coined, the concept has spread like wildfire in developer communities. Lots of applications have been developed using AJAX. In fact, a lot of applications were developed using AJAX long before AJAX came into existence. In this section, we will go over some AJAX application examples to give the reader some sense of what AJAX is capable of and what applications have been built using it.

Real-World AJAX Book Preview: AJAX Alternatives

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 10:00:00 EST

AJAX is a viable way to develop richer, more interactive Web applications. These kinds of applications are typically referred to as 'Rich Internet Applications' (RIAs). RIA is a term that describes the next-generation Web applications that combine the performance and functionality of desktop software with the universal deployment advantages of the Web.

Real-World AJAX Book Preview: AJAX Application Architecture

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 10:00:00 EST

Given the challenges associated with AJAX, it is particularly important to architect an AJAX application properly. Otherwise the result can be either lackluster performance or a code maintenance nightmare, or both.

Real-World AJAX Book Preview: The AJAX Software Platform Requires Real Design

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:00:00 EST

AJAX has raised the awareness of the potential of Web applications. It has also deepened and broadened the use of JavaScript and DHTML in application development. There are significant benefits to AJAX, but there are also significant challenges.

Real-World AJAX Book Preview: Servers Are for Data, Not Pages

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 10:00:00 EST

AJAX changes the role of Web pages from being merely HTML documents into 'applications' that contain both HTML markup and code. And it changes the role of the 'server' from merely serving HTML pages to serving data too. In classic Web applications, Web servers serve HTML Web pages. Some of the pages are static; others are generated dynamically by server-side logic.

Real-World AJAX Book Preview: What is AJAX?

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:00:00 EST

'Ajax, shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is a web development technique for creating interactive web applications. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user makes a change. This is meant to increase the web page's interactivity, speed, and usability.'

Is AJAX Deprecating Client Side Java?

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 08:15:00 EST

The AJAX wildfire makes many people constantly think about what impact it has on other technologies such as Java, Flash and .NET. Are application developers going to switch from other technologies to AJAX? I explored this subject with regard to Flash in my earlier post.

Web 2.0 Re-Examined: Nexaweb's Coach Wei On The Paradigm Shift, Technology Stack and Business Value

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 00:30:00 EST

In this comprehensive article Wei re-examines Web 2.0, in contrast to the common consumer-centric point of view, by looking at its technology stack and impact on enterprise computing. Wei establishes a Web 2.0 technology stack that forms the foundation of a paradigm shift he calls the 'architecture of partition.'

Year 2007: Return of Tech IPO?

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 16:00:00 EST

The tech IPO market goes in cycles, just like how spring is followed by summer, autumn and winter and then returns in a year again. A well respected VC shared with me some of his studies on the cyclic nature of the IPO market one of the key conclusions is that the peak between two adjacent IPO markets is about nine years. Using this as a rough benchmark, the next IPO boom is around the corner.

The Truth of Yahoo, Google and IT Enabled Services

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 17:00:00 EST

This Yahoo internal document by Brad Garlinghouse (a Yahoo senior vice president) is a tremendous read. Brad started by stating his love for Yahoo, for example: I proudly bleed purple and, yellow everyday! And like so many people here, I love this company Then he bluntly outlines the big problems he sees at Yahoo, and 'I believe we must embrace our problems and challenges and that we must take decisive action'.

Open Source Java: "Neutral for Vendors, Good for Developers, and Great for Sun"

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 12:00:00 EST

The industry has been talking about 'open source Java' for many years and it finally happened. To be honest, I have not been enthusiastic about open sourcing Java. First of all, what does 'open source Java' mean? Java source code has been available for many years. What is the additional benefit of putting such source code under an open source license? Secondly, what kind of open source license we are looking for? Thirdly, if Java is open sourced and controlled by a community, how do we prevent fragmentation and incompatibility?

Is Microsoft Still Relevant? How?

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 07:00:00 EST

Back four years ago (2002), a good friend who works at Microsoft told me confidentially that Microsoft is working on something called 'XAML'. 'Very similar to Nexaweb - watch out', he said. To the contrary, I was actually thrilled. Regardless of what it means from a competitive perspective, XAML validates the declarative programming approach that Nexaweb has been championing for many years.

OpenAjax Update - Addressing Key Challenges For AJAX Adoption

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 12:30:00 EDT

OpenAjax Alliance had its 2nd face to face meeting on Oct 5th and 6th at Sun Microsystem's office in Santa Clara, CA after the AjaxWorld Conference. While paying close attention to confidentiality concerns, I feel comfortable sharing some of my thoughts and reactions. In particular, I am sharing some of my thoughts on the key challenges facing Ajax adoption and what OpenAjax should try to address in the near term. I love to hear feedback from the community (please comment here)after all, OpenAjax Alliance should be working on issues that the community cares about, right?

Web 2.0 Communication Layer: from HTTP to Comet to Internet Messaging Bus

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 12:30:00 EDT

We all know HTTP, the communication layer of Web 1.0. Recently, we also started to realize some of the limitations of HTTP. For example, HTTP is request/response only and does not support bi-directional communication. There are techniques to be employed for enabling bi-directional communications on top of HTTP. These techniques are being called as ?comet?. However, comet addresses only a small part of the challenge. There are a lot of other challenges to be addressed in order for the web communications layer to work well.