This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by David Heinemeier Hansson. Original Post: Ajaxing the Rails Feed Title: Loud Thinking Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LoudThinking Feed Description: All about the full-stack, web-framework Rails for Ruby and on putting it to good effect with Basecamp Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by David Heinemeier Hansson Latest Posts From Loud Thinking

Rails 0.11.0 is out on the street and I'm especially proud of the Ajax support we've been able to include. Instead of trying to soften the blow of doing client-side Javascript libraries as many others are doing, we've gone ahead and more or less removed the need for hand-written client-side javascript entirely.

This is done by off-loading the creation of DOM elements to the server side, which returns complete constructs that are then injected live through innerHTML. While this method is slightly more verbose than just peddling data across the wire, it's immensely easier to develop.

And especially the ease of development is critical to the success of Ajax. I used the old style of hand-crafting the DOM on the client-side with Ta-da List and was quite disillusioned at the mess of browser differences and the sheer effort it took. Basically, each sliver of Ajax was a project in itself.

With Honey, though, I've been all over the new Ajax style that Rails affords. And what a difference it makes! It's basically no harder to make something Ajaxed than it is not to, which means that the decision is based on whether its a good fit for the user interface — not on whether we have time to another Ajax project.

We can argue about the name, we can argue old wine on new bottles, but the attention this technique is getting and its integration in frameworks like Rails will rocket its use to the moon and further blur the decision on when you need to go rich and when not to.