The Session
What has AJAX done for us anyway?
The best bits of Web 2.0 are conceptual not technological social networking, tagging, folksonomy and we don't really need Ajax to implement these ideas. We can build these next generation apps without destroying accessibility or riding roughshod through user expectations.
In this presentation, I won't be trying to tell you not to use Ajax, or decrying it as 'evil' or 'fundamentally inaccessible'. I won't spend a lot of time critisising bad examples unconstructive critisism is all too easy, and bad examples don't mean that a general principle is bad.
But I will be exploring and advocating the option of not using Ajax, on a case-by-case basis, as a solution or workaround to the problems it can create. And I'll be looking at some of the darlings of Web 2.0, to see how much of what they do really needs Ajax to make it work well.
The Speaker
James Edwards (aka Brothercake) is a freelance web developer based in the United Kingdom, specialising in advanced Javascript programming and accessible website development.
He is an outspoken advocate of standards-based development, an active member of The Web Standards Project (WaSP), and creator of the Ultimate Drop Down Menu system the first commercial DHTML menu to be WCAG compliant.
James was also co-author of The Javascript Anthology, published by SitePoint in 2006.
