WSRP 2.0, JSR 286, and AJAX

[Mete Kural <metek@touchtonecorp.com>]

Hello Sirs,

Here is another comment from one of the consumers of the standards you 
define in regards to the recent discussions on AJAX in the WSRP mailing 
list. I had left a comment about a year ago on the importance of fully 
supporting AJAX cases in WSRP 2.0 and back then I had observed that 
there was interest within the committee for this. However, because JSR 
286 has gone further ahead than WSRP 2.0 in supporting AJAX cases, there 
is a risk of disparity between WSRP 2.0 and JSR 286 which may render 
irrelevant the nice JSR 168/WSRP 1.0 story that Stefan referred to. I'm 
afraid that  if WSRP 2.0 by the time of its final release does not catch 
up to JSR 286 in regards to AJAX support and extensions to WSRP 2.0 end 
up being needed to close that gap, then all those interoperability tests 
between various WSRP vendors will not have the same effect as WSRP 1.0 
interoperability. That is because AJAX is far from being a marginal 
feature any more and if it is not "properly" supported in both standards 
without needing extensions, then interoperability will be relevant only 
for non-AJAX situations. Since interoperability is such a crucial aspect 
of WSRP, WSRP may become less and less relevant as AJAX cases becomes 
more and more popular. In contrast, if WSRP 2.0 catches up to JSR 286 in 
its AJAX support and no extensions to WSRP 2.0 are needed to nicely 
support AJAX cases, then AJAX's increasing popularity will further 
promote WSRP as well as JSR 286 as the standards to base AJAX solutions 
on. Therefore I recommend the WSRP 2.0 committee to recognize AJAX cases 
as a crucial feature that should be implemented "properly" and catch up 
to JSR 286 in this respect. I, as a consumer would much prefer a late 
release of WSRP 2.0 with proper AJAX support rather than an earlier 
release with mediocre AJAX support. In any case, I will be implementing 
my WSRP portlets using JSR 286 so I have to wait for JSR 286 regardless 
and an earlier WSRP release will not have a benefit for me.

Thank you for reading.

Kind regards,
Mete Kural