You can’t play with Ajax concepts unless you’re willing to play with JavaScript. Truth be told, if you’re going to do something really useful with Ajax, you’re not going to be playing – you’re going to be doing some no-kidding-around software development in JavaScript.

I have long been a violent sceptic about the viability of JavaScript as anything more than a toy. Cross-browser issues + debugging have been the fatal duo to useful JavaScript for many a year. But, with folks at Google and Flickr making critical-path use of it, it is time to give JavaScript a serious shot. Some of the classic pitfalls still remain, but they can be overcome with a little patience, a little cleverness, and some good tools.

So, I thought it would be useful to offer up a recommended toolbox for doing some genuine JavaScript and Ajax development:

I may add to this list as time goes by, so if you find this list useful, you might want to bookmarkit.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 29th, 2005 at 07:00 and is filed under syndication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.