[wp-hackers] Compose Screen

[Jeff Minard]

Owen Winkler wrote:
> [This is one of the things I never got about Ajax.  If you have to code 
> everything so that browsers that don't support Ajax still work, then 
> you're practically writing server-side code twice just to enable both 
> the standard form submissions and the Ajax features that save you, what? 
>  Forcing the user to reload a page by instead loading something in the 
> background?  I'm still unclear on the true benefits of applying Ajax to 
> a feature that isn't going to exclusively operate via Ajax.]


Nope. You pretty much got it. There are cases where you simply say "AJAX 
  or get off my code" but in most instances you are doing what 
JavaScript ought to be doing: adding additional behaviour/functionality 
on top of a a solid foundation.

I *know* that AJAX in the case of something like AutoSaving would be a 
hugely awesome item on the "Feature" list. Both in the fact that I want 
it, no one else (I know of) has it, and the attraction of not loosing 
posts anymore to an average user would be tremendous.

But, yeah, it does require coding twice (or if you're smart and 
abstracted, maybe 1.5 times) to add that extra little feature -- but in 
a number of cases I think it's worth it. After all, a group of, what, 
300 people work on the WordPress core with maybe 10-30 actually coding, 
but hundreds of thousands benefit from that 1.5times the work...I think 
we can handle it.

Jeff