Sun joins IBM for Ajax development

Sun is the third major IT vendor to back the Ajax developer suite after AOL and IBM

Sun Microsystems has joined the Dojo Foundation, a group developing an open source development kit for creating Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) applications. 

Sun is the third major IT vendor to back the developer suite following AOL and IBM.

The vendor's support ensures that the DoJo tool will be agnostic about the server side architecture rather than tied to the products of one particular vendor, argued Alex Russell, the project's lead developer.

"Sun's announcement is the next big thing for us. It means that it is not just an AOL/IBM toolkit," Russell told vnunet.com.

"We are really happy about that. With only one or two vendors behind it, it was unclear that it wouldn't be tied to one person's idea of what the server side should look like."

Sun will allow DoJo to become an enterprise grade developer tool by helping developers to create internationalised applications and meet accessibility standards, according to Russell.

The company will also contribute several components to make the tool more suited to enterprise needs.

"These are the kind of basic development issues that everyone has. Some of them would not get solved on the open source side alone, because frankly they are not interesting to someone who is just volunteering their time," said Russell.

He added that it will probably take another two versions before DoJo is ready for mainstream enterprise use, although several corporations are using it today.

EBay, for instance, used the tool to create the user interface for what it claims is the world's largest commercial Wiki.

IBM backed the DoJo project earlier this month and promised that it would donate intellectual property. 

Similar to the Sun contributions, IBM will expand the application with support for building multi-language applications, as well applications that meet the forthcoming Dynamic Web Content Accessibility specification being developed within the World Wide Web Consortium.

The Ajax technique allows developers to create interactive web applications. A static webpage exchanges data only when a user clicks on a link or button. Ajax applications transmit data behind the scenes, making for more responsive and user-friendly online applications.

Popular examples of Ajax applications include Google's Gmail and the Flickr online photo-sharing application.

Creating Ajax applications is considered an arduous task because of browser compatibility issues. Developer tools such as Dojo or the Google Web Toolkit aim to eliminate human errors by providing automation.

The Google Web Toolkit was released last month at JavaOne. The tool helps Java developers by allowing them to transform their existing code into JavaScript.

Russell does not see DoJo competing with Google's application as much as with commercial tools such as Back base, although he admits that the commercial tools are "more complete".

"But the momentum is what got me excited. There will always be a market for people who want something that is a lot more open and gives them a seat at the table, a chance to hack on it," he said.