What about Flash? (Score 0, Offtopic)

I love Google maps and I like what you can do with AJAX- but the fundamental problem with most browser based scripting technologies is that they're best at rending text. Don't get me wrong, anything that makes a webpage more responsive than the -click- load -click- is a step in the right direction.

Flash has earned a bad rep among programmers because it's often used for @#$?%! annoying and obtrusive ads and unnecessary web... page ... intros... that... just...- swoosha- won't... stop. On behalf of Flash developers everywhere, I would like to apologize for every 'punch the monkey' banner ad out there. But if it's used for browser rending of information being streamed over an XML socket (and no, you don't have to send XML over the connection- it's just a socket) it kicks *ss. it's scripting language, Actionscript is dead easy to learn. If you're used to Java, you can pick it up in a few days. And I'm sorry, but SVG doesn't even come close to touching it. I don't think that it will survive the Adobe/Macromedia merger.

My only beef with Flash is the vector rending pipeline. You get alpha for free but try overlaying a few transparent vectors and... performance... chugs. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that the bitmap caching (you need the Flash 8 beta player to see bitmap caching in action) in the upcoming Flash 8 addresses this problem. The demo's I've seen look promising.

Check out Grant Skinner's or Yugo Nakamura work and if you want a great example of what you can do with real-time data in Flash- check out www.dentsu.com. What you see is the real-time position of all 30-some elevators in dentsu's corporate headquarters.

Disclaimer: I am currently a Flash Developer. If you want to see my work- it's at bodog.net. It's free online multiplayer poker and yes, those are real people playing. You can see the two technologies playing nicely together- the lobby was done using AJAX technology and the actual game tables are in Flash. Try refreshing the game table if you want an example of Flash using server-based persistance.