Dangerous Ideas

Ajax was really cool before it got named ‘Ajax’ – Google Maps and Gmail, for example, had wonderful features that other Web-based mapping and e-mail services didn’t. Back then, I loved Ajax (before it became Ajax). I also liked some of the early applications that became well known at about the time Ajax started taking off, like Basecamp and Odeo. There are times when it just made adding an item to a to do list, for example, really easy – no need to reload the page! That was the Golden Age of Ajax (scary to think of an age that lasted such a short period of time), when Ajax made me feel like I could do more quicker.

Now, though, Ajax-y things (I’m using Ajax broadly, since it’s applied so broadly) are everywhere. And when Firefox hits 95 perecent CPU utilization I feel pretty far from productive. And this can happen several times a day – that’s crazy! JavaScript libraries like Prototype, Mochikit, and Scriptaculous are great, but maybe they make things too easy.

I guess it wouldn’t be as much of a problem if I only opened up a few Web sites at once, but my usage of Firefox is to have several windows with multiple tabs open in them. I guess this problem could be alleviated if Firefox had the option to suppress JavaScript processing for pages other than the current top page. I hope they add that feature at one point, but in the meantime, here’s my plea to the “Web 2.0” crowd: please apply common sense! Why do people write JavaScript that polls a Web site every 5 seconds? What could possibly possess someone to think that was a good idea?

Here’s a book idea – maybe someone should write a tale of warning to the Web 2.0 developers. Maybe call it “Crash 2.0” …