Is Ajax development slowing down?

I was asked an interesting question by a friend the other day. "Is Ajax development slowing down?"

I noticed the same trend; I just did not really think that it was a big issue. It seems that there is a slow down in the amount of information that is coming out on the net. We do not see as many impressive stories on sites like Ajaxian.com, before there would be tons of information on my queue to read to make sure I did not miss anything. Now that queue is getting smaller day by day. You do not see people ranting how bad Ajax is on Slashdot, I always laugh at comments there wondering if they know the difference between a website and an application. (AH different topic, get back on track). I remember when my book got reviewed there along with the others. Oh the laughs!

I see four reasons why there seems to be a slow down with Ajax.

First reason: It is SUMMER in the northern hemisphere! I know I been spending my free time working on my yard. I been power washing my fence, building a pond to relax by with the wireless connection, and cutting my grass (really it is not grass, but a bunch of weeds I act like is grass) instead of sitting in front of the computer coding. (I vowed this summer I would not write a book! I needed to get rid of my geek tan.)

Second reason: Seems like frameworks are maturing and that people are fully developing applications before they release them. Yes we still see betas and versions .000001ABC. Before we used to see an example, click on a button and it would say "Feature not implemented yet since it is in Beta." I would laugh and wonder why it was rushed out unless someone out there needed an ego boost or a new job.

Third reason: Seems like people are focusing on more of the technical issues of Ajax now and not the wow factors. I am seeing more research done on memory leaks, best practices/patterns, and so on. It seems like people are trying to get everything nailed down so we can understand it more on a technical level instead of an inspiration level. (Yeah that wounds corny, but werne’t you inspired when you saw Google Maps or an autocomplete for the first time?) I know I been doing more research projects of my own than actually coding new applications. Personally I have been looking into making sure that the request from the server is what you wanted. I talked about on issue with pop up blockers with responseText way back on my blog here. I have done this talk at the Ajax conferences (the Ajax Experience and AjaxSeminar.) There are other issues such as Norton Internet Security screwing up my code (seeing problems with this with my production code, bosses on my rear end about it) and other 3rd party components. Good old adblocker causing JS errors and my JS client side to server side log keeps catching them. AHHHH…..Off track again….

Fourth reason: The last reason is one I have seen from doing my talks at local user groups in the Washington DC/Baltimore area. It really seems like new developers in the realm of Ajax are taking their time looking at what Ajax has to offer. They are looking at frameworks versus a custom solution. When I first started I saw these people jumping right into the mix, now I see them actually evaluating their options. But I do see the same errors popping up with these users. Message boards and forums I post on see new users with the same questions. So it looks like information out there is still missing. (Or are they the ones jumping in without actually investigating?)

So what is my one line answer to this question?

So is Ajax development slowing down? I say no, I say it is maturing!

Eric Pascarello
Coauthor of Ajax In Action
Moderator of HTML/JavaScript at www.JavaRanch.com
Author of: JavaScript: Your Visual Blueprint for building Dynamic Web Pages