As I inch my way towards the Ruby conversion of this site, I can't help but to stop and think about how cool this stuff really is. If you are a web developer, I suggest you try the following:
- Buy a copy of Agile Web Development With Rails. (Don't walk, RUN.)
- Open the book to page 385 and read the chapter on Ajax support titled The Web, 2.0.
- If you are not completely blown away by what you are reading, then I have some doubts as so how much web development you've done in the past.
Let me say that I'm not a big fan of buzzwords. In fact, I loathe them. One of the biggest dangers to a company's software development is a bunch of middle-managers with their head's full of buzzwords ("We need to move all internal database access to a web service with SOAP built on top of SOA with a Portlet view ASAP!") However, after reading this chapter, I feel strongly that AJAX will help to lift the 'Web 2.0' buzzword to industry-altering status.
"I remember the days when a web form needed to be submitted to an actual web server to be processed. Your typing wasn't even spell-checked for you!"