First look and few thoughts on the Microsoft AJAX Beta

October 21, 2006 @ 6:25 am- from Maui, Hawaii

So Microsoft now has released Beta 1 of the ASP.NET Ajax Extensions. As expected this update pretty much fries all existing ATLAS code as there are major changes in the framework. I haven’t dug in trying to fix my existing code yet, but just looking over some of the components and client framework changes and spending a couple hours creating a few new samples, it looks like it will take some time to fix up existing code.

This is not unexpected since it was clear from hints at Microsoft that there would be a major API change for some time. Bummer for me though – as I have to fix my sessions for ASP.NET connections in a couple of weeks. I was expecting that though <g>…

Ajax, Ajax everywhere – how about some decent naming?

So, I just spent a couple of hours going over just the base AJAX extensions. The base extension is essentially the one official piece in the latest release that will actually ship in the reasonably near future as a ‘real’ product. All the rest of the ATLAS tools is either CTP (the ASP.NET Ajax CTP) as well as the ASP.NET Ajax Toolkit or sort of open source not quite official.

Talk about boneheaded naming:

ASP.NET AJAX (Beta)

ASP.NET AJAX CTP

ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit

Let’s make this as confusing as possible and have 2 versions that are different, but with the same name. Let’s make 1 a beta and one a CTP to really screw with their minds. What are you guys smoking at Microsoft? <g>

The functionality of the former ATLAS library gets split into a multiple libraries which are described here along with breaking changes. This is a good document to read as it outlines some of the core changes and philosophy in broad terms.

What I take away from this is that most of the former ATLAS functionality is actually not part of the base extension library, but part of the AJAX CTP which is described like this in the documentation:

ASP.NET AJAX CTP

The CTP release is community supported. The features in the CTP release may be added to the supported features in future versions of ASP.NET AJAX. The CTP release is compatible with the Beta version of ASP.NET AJAX.

Now I don’t know about you, but that reads pretty vague to me – as in buyer beware (free but not free, eh?) and leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Specifically it seems to indicate that Microsoft is leaving itself room to modify this part of the framework extensively. So, more or less a continuation of the CTP model and the merry go ‘round of changes.

I make that distinction because it has some important ramifications on forward compatibility which to me is important. Frankly I’ve been getting real burned out on constantly updating and re-doing everything related to ATLAS every 3 or 4 months. The roadmap as laid out looks like that’s not going to change even with the release of Ajax Extensions 1.0 if you plan to use the CTP. Looking at what I see in this beta/ctp combination I still don’t see how I can use Microsoft Ajax in production any time soon.

Microsoft Ajax 1.0 Beta – Server side

So the base extensions are pretty minimal in functionality. Loading up just the base Ajax library is a bit of a shock because it has actually very few features especially compared to the ATLAS CTPs. When you look at the toolbox of server controls it basically has the two ScriptManagers, UpdatePanel and a Timer control – that’s it.

It looks like the focus of the 1.0 library is to provide just a core set of features that is not particular interesting. The highlight from a developer perspective is the popular UpdatePanel of course which is definitely very useful and powerful, but a little disappointing to see that as the only feature of the main toolkit that is useful out of the box.

It’s good to see that some issues have been addressed especially in regards to UpdatePanel. It’s now possible to control the callback handling of update panels more completely. UpdatePanel has a ChildrenAsTriggers property (which can only be set if UpdateMode=”Conditional”) and if set to “false” doesn’t cause a postback in the current update panel. It’s been a big issue for forms like this where the listbox can be updateable but shouldn’t update on the selection click. To make this sample work I made the listbox not updateable (ie. The UpdatePanel around it is commented out). I can now make this work – this has been a big issue with UpdatePanel and I’m glad to see this particular issue addressed.

The PageRequestManager client object now has events that fire at various points of the UpdatePanel page processing and it includes an array panels that have been updated at the end of the call. There’s a sample that shows how to do this here.

Unfortunately I still don’t see a mechanism to trigger an UpdatePanel to update programmatically from the client side – which is one feature that seems to be among the most requested features on the ATLAS forums. We’re going to have to continue using ‘fake button triggers’ to make this happen.

The UpdatePanel is probably the most popular of the server side controls so I’m glad that it’s part of the base library. In addition there’s the Timer control (which works in conjunction with UpdatePanel). But that’s about it as far as server controls are concerned in the base library. The rest of the base server functionality includes the server side runtime support for managing callbacks for the server controls as well as the networking functionality and JavaScript serialization features. Most of the stuff is not interesting to the day to day developer – it’s the core engine for ASP.NET to do its thing internally and provide facilities for control/framework developers.

But there are a few interesting classes like the ExtenderControlClass that have been migrated into the base kit (I think this was in the Toolkit previously). Unfortunately the documentation sucks even worse than it did in ATLAS, so there’s no way to really see what it does unless you dig out reflector and take a look. There’s also the JSON serialization code and HttpCompression for WebResources which is useful beyond ATLAS.

Microsoft Ajax 1.0 Beta – Client side

If you look at the client library it’s basically runtime level stuff only – the type system, debug/trace, networking including the Web Service interface (thankfully) although Indigo support has been pulled. The one big useful feature for me in this toolset is the Web Service functionality which I’ve used fairly extensively with client code. Only is a little harsh of a word – this stuff is very useful but probably less though to the application developer vs. the tool builder.

Most base UI features are there like Behavior, ControlExtender and Control, but no actual specializations of these classes. So client side control implementations are lacking, none of the like hover and float behaviors are there. All the actual specific control implementations are only in the add-on CTP.

All of this comes with a client side download of about 26k Gzipped for the library (page that includes both UpdatePanel and a Web Service callback) which isn’t bad, but not that much of an improvement given that it doesn’t include any of the UI libraries.

I ran into a bunch of problems with existing client code. Alot has changed here and it's going to take a while to get things updated and moved over. Right off the top I also ran into a problem with Web Services returning any sort of Data objects (DataTable, DataSet, DataRow) which fails with server side serialization errors. Big problem for me cause I have several samples that use this handy mechanism in conjunction with client side databinding to load data. Haven't found a workaround for this one yet (other than return a List<entity> instead - that works, but you can't bind that automatically).

Documentation got even worse

BTW, if you were hoping for better documentation in this release forget it. It’s actually much worse. Documentation is online and as before it provides a good number of samples and component documentation. The samples are useful and usable, but the component documentation is even worse than the previous ATLAS CTP documentation. For one only the V1 Beta components are available. I see no documentation for the CTP add-on at all.

Most functionality of the component documentation stubbed only with no documentation beyond the function signatures. Pathetic that… sorry folks, putting out software of this level of complexity without documentation shows a level of non-professionalism that is painful to see from Microsoft. Seriously! This is supposed to be a BETA so you have no excuse for providing documentation this shitty.

More CTPs are not a good thing

So really, for this stuff to be useful you need to use both the base library and the CTP together. At first glance that may not sound so bad – you haven’t lost anything over ATLAS, right? But I think as developers we really lose big time with this arrangement! ASP.NET Ajax Extensions 1.0 are supposed to ship at the end of the year as a ‘real’ supported product, but it’s clear Microsoft doesn’t intend that same status for the CTP. This means in order to really use ATLAS we’re going to continue to have to deal with a CTP or unsupported and most like changing code. The release schedule for these extensions aren’t clear but if I had to guess I’d say this will eventually be rolled into the Orcas wave of tools. Which if correct would mean this is at least another year off and in the meantime we get to use CTP software that at any point can change…

Like I said at the beginning, I’ve been holding off ATLAS for precisely this reason. I’m not about to use this pre-release software that is in a state of heavy flux. I have a fair amount of ATLAS code that I use for demos and experimenting and I’ve had to complete change that code 3 times now (ok 2 plus the changes I’ll have to make now). It’s not too bad to do this to some sample code, but in a production environment this is not something I’d take lightly.

Yet these AJAX extensions are by many considered the defacto AJAX standard for ASP.NET ALREADY even though it’s non-shipping software. Especially people who are not intimately involved in the community and online – from the outside looking in all the talk that has been focusing on ATLAS gives the impression that it’s ready to use today. It’s not. And I’m not sure that even V 1.0 will make it so beyond the limited functionality that is in that package.

I’m sticking to my custom stuff or using Anthem for the time being and I can look forward to actually being productive and getting stuff done <s>…

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Posted in ASP.NET AJAX Microsoft AJAX

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# re: First look and few thoughts on the Microsoft AJAX Beta
by Brett Jacobson October 21, 2006 @ 7:23 am

It took me 3 hours yesterday to convert my app to the new bits. Half that time was spent figuring out where the hell the UpdatePanel actually was, and figuring that the file labelled CTP *wasn't* an older version of the Beta file. That was a HORRIBLE naming. If they'd included "Value-Add" in the name, that would have been better!

We do plan on using this AJAX release to our production website (probably going live mid-late November). By then hopefully we'll have found which things aren't stable enough so we can pull them out. We're not using a great deal of AJAX yet. Just a few UpdatePanels and from the Toolkit: CalloutValidator, HoverMenu, TextboxWatermark; we're also using wwHoverPanel :) The fact that we're not relying on anything from the Value-Add (aside from UpdatePanel, which is going to migrate)helps in my decision. (i.e. I don't have to worry about it. When they DO have something in there I want, then I'll have to share your concerns). The "flash" that these can give our intranet app are worth it (assuming they pass QA). Our next release after this one might not be until April 2007, so we have to take our chances with this version to add spice.

# re: First look and few thoughts on the Microsoft AJAX Beta
by Gregor Suttie October 21, 2006 @ 11:47 am

I'm relieved we didnt use Atlas for a projetc which is finishing mid November - we chose Anthem due to bugs in Atlas at the time and it looks at this moment to have been a good call.

Shame as I was hoping to use Altas - alas.

# DotNetSlackers: First look and few thoughts on the Microsoft AJAX Beta
by DotNetSlackers Latest ASP.NET News October 21, 2006 @ 1:53 pm

# re: First look and few thoughts on the Microsoft AJAX Beta
by Rick Strahl October 21, 2006 @ 2:31 pm

Brett, UpdatePanel is part of the base package now. It's basically it's main feature (plus the base runtimes). Not sure why you didn't see it.

FWIW, I spent some more time last night with my existing demos. It seems updating pages with UpdatePanels on it is pretty easy and usually requires just renaming tags and a couple of properties.

It's the Web Service and client stuff that's turning out to be the real pain in the ass.

# re: First look and few thoughts on the Microsoft AJAX Beta
by JP October 21, 2006 @ 4:28 pm

Hello Rick,

I agree with you, I think they smoked the carpet at Microsoft.
Bertrand has a ,<a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/bleroy/archive/2006/10/11/From-closures-to-prototypes_2C00_-part-1.aspx" title="More Atlas stuff">post</a> on his blog explaining how the prototype model is obviously so much better than the closure one, so why did it take them almost one year to find this out? Don't they have javascript experts at MS?
At least it makes me not feel so bad when I do something stupid from the start and I have to redo it allover, I don't consider myself a good programmer but these guys should be.
One good thing about the new model is that it makes intellisense, syntax error detection and class exploration work much better in Aptana.
I think you had problems earlier starting Aptana, but it is really nice to have full intellisense with the new ASP.NET AJAX model.

# re: First look and few thoughts on the Microsoft AJAX Beta
by Rick Strahl October 21, 2006 @ 5:41 pm

Yeah the prototype thing is a big deal and there was some discussion on that right from the start at Microsoft I believe. I think they also didn't expect this turn into such a huge beast at first in which case this wouldn't have made as much of a difference.

The client stuff is what's changed the most and at this point, there's absolutely NO documentation of the Preview librarys far as I can tell. I just re-downloaded Aptana and tried with the Zip install it seems to work. And yes it looks real nice! Thanks!

As to the client stuff in ATLAS, I think much of the stuff is just so freaking under implemented. Like the Control class has barely any base functionality at all and even the specific subclasses (in the Preview space) don't provide much useful functionality beyond setting a value. Where's the useful stuff like setting attributes and common control specific settings... Behaviors are nice and all, but some of this stuff could have been put right on the base control.

Really bugs me looking at this release and having lost even more of the little functionality that was there in the first place.

# re: First look and few thoughts on the Microsoft AJAX Beta
by Andreas Kraus October 22, 2006 @ 1:41 am

Brett: I experienced the same. I already played around a lot with Atlas and I needed to convert 4 projects which took me about 5 hours. That's really annoying, I hope we can build on a more stable enovirment now.

# re: First look and few thoughts on the Microsoft AJAX Beta
by Rick Strahl October 22, 2006 @ 2:06 am

5 hours is pretty good for 4 projects. Are you using just update panels or any of the client stuff too?

I'm finding many problems at this point and not one of my pages is completely working on the beta - they all have one or another thing that doesn't work quite right. Biggest issue is Web Service lack of ADO.NET object (DataSet/DataTable etc.) support.

But what's worse is my apps are very unstable now. There are many seemingly random errors occurring during callbacks. Callbacks will work once but not on repeated calls. Or timered updates will work a couple of times before failing. Most of the errors don't fire back into my code - they blow up in the framework somewhere. It seems in the previous CTPs most of these errors bubbled up into the application code...

The whole thing feels very unstable to me at this point. I don't understand why they had to rush this out like this. It's pretty obvious from what I see and others on the forums that this release wasn't ready to go out yet. This is supposed to be a beta and it feels as bad as the original PDC build did a year ago... especially frustrating given that the last ATLAS CTPs finally seemed to come into something resembling stability.

# re: First look and few thoughts on the Microsoft AJAX Beta
by Eilon (Microsoft) October 23, 2006 @ 10:11 am

> "Unfortunately I still don’t see a mechanism to trigger an UpdatePanel to update programmatically from the client side – which is one feature that seems to be among the most requested features on the ATLAS forums. We’re going to have to continue using ‘fake button triggers’ to make this happen."

This would have been a cool feature, and it still can be implemented, but on the server. You'll have to send down some data from the client to the server and on the server call UpdatePanel.Update() to force the panels to update. I actually haven't seen that this was a huge request, but I've heard it a few times still.

Regarding stuff that's missing/gone/changed, here's my take on this: The previous Atlas CTPs were like concept cars. They showcased the direction we think AJAX is going with lots of cool features and new techniques. When it comes time to release, we whittle away the rough edges and deliver a solid based. However the big difference here is that we're still shipping almost all those concept pieces in our separate CTP package. Some of those will be further refined, and some might not.

Thanks,
Eilon

# A Continuous Learner's Weblog: Links (10/22/2006)
by A Continuous Learner's Weblog October 23, 2006 @ 12:21 pm

# re: First look and few thoughts on the Microsoft AJAX Beta
by JonHilt October 24, 2006 @ 8:26 am

I have to say I can't really understand people complaining about getting their fingers burnt using pre-release software.

I understand why it might be frustrating if you're trying to deliver production web sites using Atlas but in why would you do that based on a CTP?

It seems to me that MS are taking a pretty good approach with this project, work on an implementation, push it out to the community, get some feedback and then develop it further.

Sure that means that things will change, and in changing code, bugs will creep in but I for one will only judge the framework when it goes RTM.

The other factor is that I can't really justify using other AJAX frameworks in my job because the company would be quite nervous about using a non-supported platform that is liable to change regularly. The RTM Atlas code will be fully supported and (hopefully) stable between versions, that's good enough for me.

Also, whatever people's personal views are on this, the fact is anything Microsoft does tends to push things out into the mainstream and more people learning AJAX development techniques is surely a good thing.

# RichardSoeteman.NET - Van ATLAS CTP naar ASP.NET Ajax 1.0 Beta
by RichardSoeteman.NET November 12, 2006 @ 6:13 pm

RichardSoeteman.NET - Van ATLAS CTP naar ASP.NET Ajax 1.0 Beta Weblog