Day 3 - Session 3 - Ajaxy Sites

So this is actually a keynote session, and it's not really dedicated to "AJAX" per-say.

In reality, this discussion is mostly about different technologies (Fluid, Google Gears, etc) that will allow you to tie into the OS for features (growls, badge updates [mac], etc) as well as being able to do background threaded JavaScript (which Chrome has embedded Gears, so the browser is starting to pick up this instead of using plugins).

It also discussed how HTML5 will be changing ways we start looking at application design, particularly in regards to the Canvas element, and how you can dynamically draw on the retained objects to do things like video games, quick response applications, etc, at extremely fast frame rates.

I can't even begin to touch all the topics (disregar the fact that we were about 30 minutes late to the session) that the speaker was discussing, but I have to say this was one of the more technical and advanced ideologies of the ZendCon I've seen thus far. It definitely worries me about my age-old saying of how "anyone that can type thinks they can develop" in that it means we're going to see way more advanced applications come out. Doesn't sound like a bad thing right? Well, not entirely, but I think what we'll be seeing is a lot of apps start showing up that would normally be simple to do in a desktop environment being attempted in these new technologies, which will in turn eat up your PC because these crap-devs don't know what they're doing. It definitely looks like these technologies are becoming more advanced, but not necesarially making development any easier. With the advent and injection of threading being a popular topic, and newer ideas coming about all the time, I think it will be interesting to see how the IT industry (particularly the development industry) will shape, and what it means for us current developers.

-Spaz