Microsoft Joins OpenAjax Alliance
Kudos to ScottGu and team for working with common AJAX standards to ensure interoperability across different AJAX frameworks. When I was considering joining Microsoft last year I had to be convinced that A) Microsoft would continue to play nicely in the industry and B) that Microsoft would continue to become a more transparent organization. I was sold, and I'm very happy to see this announcement from Scott. You may be asking, but what do you care about AJAX? Okay, I bashed AJAX a little. But the reality is, web applications are huge. While I will continue to critique the abomination that is (X)HTML, the DOM, and even ECMAScript (to a lesser extent), the reality is people have a disposition against installing things. So until the smart client world gets a better ClickOnce story or moves towards platforms like WPF/e, it is wise to focus on the platform that the people want. Besides, I wouldn't be much of a "Community Platform Developer" if I stuck to a platform that didn't have much reach!