Title: Rise of slow AJAX applications
Author: Alex Kirk
Published: October 4, 2005

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# Rise of slow AJAX applications

October 4, 2005

The current movement towards AJAX is a good thing. If it really were a movement 
towards AJAX. In my eyes it is rather a higher acceptance for Javascript applications.
Of course, it is quite naturally in the early stages of a “hyped” technology to 
observe many misuses; they use AJAX just for the sake of using _AJAX_.

Pages get more voluminous because so much code has to be loaded to the browser (
which makes the browser slow again) so you could just begin to use the application.
This somehow reminds me of all the flash apps. Waiting for hours to load the page
and you’ll stick to that page for half a minute. (I do have a broadband connection.
Still a page with 30kb loads 10 times faster than a 300kb page).

A negative example for this is [Kiko](http://www.kiko.com/), a web calendar. It 
has a nice “Kiko loading” box which already hints that they are doing something 
wrong. All Javascript files are included via server side scripting instead of loading
them via <script src=”xyz.js”> which would allow the browser to cache the file.

Kiko is just one example, there are others doing similar mistakes.

I think that the current usage of AJAX is a misuse of the browser. They are designed
to render web pages (i.e. (X)HTML pages). Javascript is a bonus. Large data strucures
can slow down browsers enourmously (they are still **interpreting** Javascript just
in time).

As a conclusion I want to come up with some essential features for AJAX applications:

 * **Keep it bookmarkable.** Don’t load everything to one page, let users return
   to a certain section of your app via their bookmarks.
 * **Don’t overuse AJAX.** Often simple Javascript without server interaction will
   do. Try to reduce the server callbacks.
 * **Minimize the code to be loaded.** When you don’t have any other choice, consider
   code downloading.
 * **Speed up your apps with AJAX.** Use AJAX for what it was meant for: tune your
   existing application at points where postbacks need to reload the same page with
   only little change.

ajax, kiko, bookmark, code downloading, speed

[Ajax](https://alex.kirk.at/category/code/ajax/)

Read this next

[Bloated Ajax Applications Due to Libraries](https://alex.kirk.at/2005/10/03/bloated-ajax-applications-due-to-libraries/)

## 2 responses to “Rise of slow AJAX applications”

 1.  [Software As She’s Developed – Ajax can *Improve* Performance Too](http://www.softwareas.com/ajax-can-improve-performance-too)
 2.  [October 6, 2005](https://alex.kirk.at/2005/10/04/rise-of-slow-ajax-applications/comment-page-1/#comment-5)
 3.  […] Recent Ajax apps like Kiko are sluggish according to Alexander Kirk’s “Rise
     of Slow Ajax Applications (via AjaxDeveloper): […]
 4.  [Log in to Reply](https://alex.kirk.at/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Falex.kirk.at%2F2005%2F10%2F04%2Frise-of-slow-ajax-applications%2F)
 5.  ![Brad Neuberg Avatar](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e3b64e2c7a25f59395d4015148a76c81fbf4033b043dbe11c1d3ab032b651c86?
     s=48&d=mm&r=g)
 6.  [Brad Neuberg](http://codinginparadise.org)
 7.  [December 18, 2005](https://alex.kirk.at/2005/10/04/rise-of-slow-ajax-applications/comment-page-1/#comment-87)
 8.  I’ve created a potential solution to bookmarking and the back and button issues
     for AJAX and DHTML applications. See my web page for it at [http://codinginparadise.org/projects/dhtml_history/README.html](http://codinginparadise.org/projects/dhtml_history/README.html)
 9.  [Log in to Reply](https://alex.kirk.at/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Falex.kirk.at%2F2005%2F10%2F04%2Frise-of-slow-ajax-applications%2F)

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