The Web and AJAX have many deficiencies , let in security holes , and much more needs to be done to press out these problem , harmonise to a keynote speaker at The Rich Web Experience conference in San Jose , Calif. , on Thursday even .

After taking the audience through a history of computing interfaces beginning with Hollerith cards to time - sharing and finally to the Web , Douglas Crockford , an designer at Yahoo and Lord of JSON ( JavaScript Object Notation ) , gave a mostly gloomy intro on AJAX ( Asynchronous JavaScript and XML ) and the Web . His demonstration was entitled , “ The State of AJAX . ”

“ The sad matter was the Web was a footfall backward in term of interactivity [ when it debuted ] , ” Crockford enounce .

It looked like Java would fix the problem with applet . “ alas , Java was a Brobdingnagian failure . It completely break down . It did n’t meet any of its goals , ” he sound out . Java ’s write - once , run - everywhere promise was not kept ; it had an unworkable security model and a ho-hum UI modeling , say Crockford . Java did , however , become very successful on the server , he contribute .

This left JavaScript and then XMLHTTP requests for communicating from the web web browser to the datum server . “ It was really Microsoft that created all the components that AJAX take , ” Crockford said .

AJAX applications are highly interactive , highly societal , easy to use , and offer great web efficiency , according to Crockford . “ The big problem is that it is too damn tough to compose these apps , ” he said .

“ The most interesting innovation in software development in 20 years has got to be the mashup , ” which exhibit the benefits of distributed programming . “ alas , mashups are insecure [ in the web browser ] , ” say Crockford , with components unable to be protected from each other .

The model in the browser app is fully broken and involve to be ready , he enounce . “ The vane is an feat waiting to go on , ” Crockford say .

Crockford then went through a critique of various Web technologies .

“ [ JavaScript is a ] deeply blemished language , ” with an unpopular scheduling good example . “ But to its credit , it ’s working really , really well in an environment where Java failed , ” said Crockford .

The planned JavaScript 2 rise also has problems . “ It will make the language substantially more complicated , ” Crockford said .

HTML raises questions about whether it is a document format or an software delivery format ; it has low graphic power and is missing a compositing model . With AJAX , HTML necessitate to be an app speech format , said Crockford . XHTML was hypothesize to replace HTML , but it died because it was too brickle , he say .

CSS ( cascade Style Sheets ) presents a styling layer in the web web browser , but it is slow , complex , and incredibly fragile . “ It surprises me that there is not a greater call for its replacing , ” Crockford said .

XML is complicated and inefficient , he said . “ fortuitously , XML has been replaced by JSON , ” Crockford say . “ This gives me some sureness that we can repair the standard in the Web . This is our first success at that . ”

Crockford urge standardization and uniformity in browser app . But there are computing machine not capable of pass the latest browsers , he say .

If the web is ineffectual to repair itself , it could be replaced with a proprietary organization such as Microsoft ’s Silverlight or Adobe ’s AIR ( Adobe Integrated Runtime ) , Crockford said . Proprietary systems do present advantage , such as having only one generator of new bugs and face a simpler rise account . But people like opened systems and are suspicious of proprietary organization , he said .

Crockford added that he used to mean the web web browser was the most hostile programming surround ever machinate , but then he found out about wandering programming . The mobile industriousness has had its own failed experiments , he said .

“ Despite all of its job , AJAX works . So we ’re look at a mobile Web now , ” Crockford said .

Fixing the many subject might just command a lack of democracy , in which the right players are placed in the same room and concord on a remedy , like to how the U.S. Constitution was devise , he said .

“ peradventure we should do that , too , but who are the correct guys and how do you figure out how to get everybody else not to revolt , ” Crockford said .

Earlier on Thursday , Kevin Hoyt , platform evangelist with Adobe Systems , emphasized the concept of experience as vital for Web development . Experience count to business , he stressed . He spoke of an experience thriftiness as a heir to the current religious service thriftiness .

“ Seventy - two pct of shopping cart abandoned because of hapless exploiter experience , ” Hoyt said .

He also urge developers not to disregard what they read from develop desktop coating when they start building for the Web . It is all right to use desktop metaphors in World Wide Web apps , such as widgets , he said . “ It ’s hunky-dory to cerebrate inside the box , ” sound out Hoyt .

Customers , he said , want a personal family relationship with a brand .