Ajax Predictions for 2007

Dietrich Kappe, Monday, January 1, 2007 @ 9:26 pm

Happy New Year! I took a little time off this holiday season to recharge the batteries and reflecting on the last year in Agile Ajax. Looking at my posts of the past year and the path that Ajax has taken got me thinking about what might be in store for the next year. Here then are my predictions for Ajax in the coming year.

1. Ajax will stop being the big buzzword. It will join terms like "HTML," "servlets" and "CSS" as part of the background noise. The Ajax focused books published at the end of 2007 will focus on specific frameworks, like Tibco GI, Echo2, OpenLaszlo and GWT.
2. Microsoft and Mozilla will add new features to their browsers to extend Ajax support. These features will address things like cross site scripting (making it easier and more secure), security, widgets standards support, extensions of Javascript, etc. The browser will evolve into more of an application platform than it is now.
3. Focus will shift from simple, one trick frameworks to complete client/server/tools solutions. Look for combinations of Dojo, GWT, Tibco GI, Echo2, ZK with other libraries and frameworks.
4. 2007 will see a new influx of WYSIWYG tools, the most innovative and powerful of which will focus on a specific Ajax frameworks. Visual Ajax widget designers make their first appearance, allowing people will moderate Javascript/CSS ability to roll their own.
5. Prototype -- with its lack of documentation and a development roadmap -- will begin fading away in favor of JQuery and other similar competitors.
6. Adobe Apollo is released, is really cool, will fail to make much of a dent in the application development market.
7. The Microsoft Ajax stack, with its lack of outside innovation, will continue to limp a little behind the Java and Javascript (and Python and Ruby) alternatives. No serious .NET alternative will emerge.
8. Still less than 50% of the top US sites will use Ajax by the end of the year.
9. A big security stink will cloud the future of Software as a Service and point out the difference between email and Excel spreadsheets (hint: for one you assume connectivity, for the other you do not).
10. Social bookmarking sites will finish 2007 still as the undisputed kings of the Ajax/Web 2.0 world.

In short, I see 2007 as more of an intermediate year of tools, evolution and experimentation. Look to 2008 as the year of really big developments.

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1. 

   Nice list

   BTW Aejaks layers tcl upon echo2:
   http://ajaxian.com/archives/aejaks-tcltk-style-framework-built-on-echo2#comments

   Comment by Martin Cleaver, Saturday, January 27, 2007 @ 11:20 am

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