Ajax coding isn't that bat
> it requires something like an AJAX library or GWT to stand any chance of producing
> something which works reliably in any browser.
I'm sure that there are plenty of differences between browsers for cutting-edge html5 features. However for "vanilla" ajax/html/css/js things are much easier than they used to be.
We develop a pretty complex 100% ajax erp application and only worry about getting code running on IE and Firefox, the latter takes care of all the other "W3C" browsers.
In the beginning (2007) Safari, Chrome, Opera and the variations mobile incarnations all had their share of problems. We just ignored them and waited a couple of years. Magically our app started working everywhere.
Most of the differences between IE and the "W3C" browsers are well documented and something like JQuery will take care of them. Though you should really ignore IE6 if you can and ideally only worry about IE8 and above.
That said Javascript IDEs and debugging doesn't come anyway near working in Visual Studio. A JS feature probably takes us 4x as long as the equivalent C# feature. Hopefully Microsoft's renewed interest in HTML will help on that front.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
