The gang at Google Labs have announced a new hosted AJAX library solution intended to provide a globally-available, load-balanced sets of common used toolsets which are often used in the development of web-based applications.
AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML for those of you keeping score at home) is an increasingly common way for developers to draw on open-source Javascript libraries - like scriptaculous and jQuery. With the advent of AJAX's ability to complete certain functions by only downloading a specific portion of a page rather than requiring an entire page download, the web has moved one step closer to becoming a true application development platform.
Google's solution would allow developers to chose from five common libraries including:
* jQuery * prototype * script.aculo.us * MooTools * dojo
Obviously, for this effort to be successful, large groups of sites will have to use the hosted API to help realize the speed and benefits of what Google is offering. There are some privacy considerations too since Google will be able to see requests for these scripts from non-Google pages. But by and large, what Google has offered should help improve overall site performance and simplify some aspects of developing these kinds of applications.
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