[1.0] Logic behind blanket renaming of Ajax... to Direct...

[r_honey]

Among many good things that are coming with the forth-coming 1.0 release, one thing that caught me by surprise was the blanket renaming of Ajax prefix in the toolkit to Direct.

I really could not understand the logic behind this one. As a web developer, the term "Ajax" comes naturally to me. And it sounding logical everywhere it was used in the toolkit (AjaxEventArgs, AjaxMethod etc.). The term Direct gives no idea and is not a term you associate to web development.

Can someone from the core team please take time out to give a bit of detail as to why such blanket renaming was necessary??

[jchau]

i believe the rename is to align with ExtJS's Ext.Direct framework

http://www.extjs.com/products/extjs/direct.php

[r_honey]

Okay, I am beginning to see it now!!!

[geoffrey.mcgill]

Hi Rahul,

Yes, the "Ajax" related items were renamed to "Direct" in order to bring them inline with the new Ext.Direct classes (http://www.extjs.com/products/extjs/direct.php).


The default Direct functionality still performs an Ajax request for client-server communication, although is more feature rich and in the future will also include options for configuring client-server communication without limiting the language to just "Ajax".


The "Long Polling Provider" will provide a Comet based implementation which opens a direct communication channel for messages to be passed between the client-to-server and server-to-client.


In the past "push" communication was a similar concept. Comet communication will simplify building scenarios such as "chat" or real time data updates such as stock quotes or just any scenario where you don't want to be constantly polling the server on a timed event.


Think of "Direct" as enabling the next level of client-server communication without being limited to just "Ajax".


Hope this helps explains the rational for the change. Feedback always appreciated.

[r_honey]

Hi Geoff, Thanx for taking time out to reply. Does that mean the reverse-Ajax that I requested in a previous Feature Request thread is there in Ext 1.0??

[geoffrey.mcgill]

r_honey (1/6/2010)Hi Geoff, Thanx for taking time out to reply. Does that mean the reverse-Ajax that I requested in a previous Feature Request thread is there in Ext 1.0??

Not with the v1.0 release, but we do hope to have something available this year. We're still in the research phase.