[ This article should be rewritten to be more precise and well written ( should give clear generic advice )
Today there's a lot of confusion hitting you when you're about to chose an Ajax Framework and since many are coming into Ajax without any previous knowledge about Ajax there's also a lot of unknown territory you need to cover and in most cases you're expected to cover that ground fast! To choose the wrong Ajax Framework can be very expensive since in most cases you'll burn up a lot of your employers money and time before actually figuring out that you've made the wrong choice, and for some companies doing the wrong choice might just be equivalent to project failure. This list is not complete, a complete list would require a book, but here's a compiled list of some of the things that is important points remembering when choosing an Ajax Framework.
- What is the learning curve of the Ajax Framework? If the learning curve is too steep it is probably the wrong tool for the job!
- How many different concepts do I need to learn? If you're expected to learn a couple of new languages and also several new class hierarchies it's probably the wrong tool!
- What abstraction level does the Framework apply? If you still need to fiddle with JavaScript and XML parsing by "hand" on the client-side then you should probably reconsider your choice!
- How flexible is the Ajax Framework? If the Ajax Framework forces you into a specific way of solving your problems you will be cornered!
- How serious is the group behind the Ajax Framework? If it's future is uncertain and basically consisting of one person with too much time it might be abandon-ware some time in the future!
- Do you get the source code for the Framework if you purchase it and the right to modify that source code? If the company goes broke somewhere in the future and you don't have the source code you're not able to maintain the library further into the future!
- What browsers does the Ajax Framework support? It should at least support the A-list ( Opera, IE, Safari and FireFox )
- What server-side stack does the Ajax Framework support? If it does only work in one very specific environment you're probably better of with something else!
- How easy is it to get support for the Ajax Framework? If it's not a well functioning support mechanism behind the library you might get cornered sometime in the future!
- What's the development pace of the Ajax Framework? When was the last release date? More than 18 months ?