AJAXWorld is a great conference that hundrends of people gathered here at RooseVelt Hotel in NYC. You can see and hear the excitement around this new paradigm of computing. But once in while, there are things that are quite amusing.

• Java vs. Microsoft WPF: It was great to catch up with Richard Monson-Haefel here at AJAXWorld Conference & Expo. Richard is one of the leading analysts that I have a lot of respect for. Richard told me that Douglas Crockford mentioned in his morning keynote session that Ajax, Flash and WPF are three leading technologies for client applications. When someone asked him about Java, Douglas said “Java is a little too late”. This makes people scratch their heads: Java has been on the client side for more than ten years. WPF is not even here yet. And you are saying “Java is a little too late”?
  
• Flash vs. ActiveX: I heard some Adobe folks pitching Rich Internet Applications and how great Flex is by explaining how bad technologies like ActiveX are. It makes me scratch my head wondering “Isn’t Flash an ActiveX?”
  
• Java Server Faces: Isn’t Web 2.0, Ajax and Rich Internet Application etc about utilizing client side processing power to deliver a better user experience? Isn’t this kind of new applications about a more client-centric (or at least a client/server balanced) computing architecture? JSF architecture is more server-centric that web 1.0 (for example, keeping the UI states on the server). Isn’t it a big step backwards?

  Oh yes, adding Ajax to JSF makes JSF “web 2.0 compliant”. Maybe adding Ajax to CICS will make CICS the technology of choice for Web 2.0 as well.

• Java Server Faces (again): Some folks were pitching JSF and how JSF combined with Ajax makes the world so much better. My interpretation? Oh yes, the world is so much better because JSF’s server centric architecture requires customers to buy a few extra servers. Oh yes, there is Ajax too – it increases the number of server hits that would require customers to buy some more server licenses too.
  
• Portal: surprisingly that I didn’t see a lot of people talking about “portal” here. It does make me wonder whether people have finally learned that “portal products” are the dying dinosaurs from the Web 1.0 era. If you think about it, “portal” is one of the most worst designed products in the software history. We know that Web 1.0’s “click and refresh” paradigm is not desirable. When we develop an application or a website, we tend to use some JavaScript to compensate for this problem. “Portal servers” are so retarded that they actually coded the “click and full page” refresh into their DNA.