Web Forefront

In all fairness, the .NET 2.0 release did have some AJAX foundations by the name of client callback, as it was named way before the AJAX term was coined. But the client callback feature in .NET 2.0 is just that : a foundation. In order to create a full fledged AJAX application parting from existing capabilities in .NET 2.0, a lot of plumbing code has to be written, not to mention wiring user interface together with a lot of JavaScript, and this is just the space .NET Atlas tries to fill.

.NET Atlas brings a unified way of creating client-side controls, greatly simplifying the task of developing JavaScript for creating AJAX based applications, in essence, Atlas is JavaScript tightly meshed with NET 2.0 features.

Bringing AJAX features under this same name, will definitely prove beneficial over time for .NET, avoiding divergent procedures on how to create applications under the AJAX model, since currently many developers use ad-hoc methods to enable AJAX in applications.

Mean while, with major releases in the works for Java EE, the Java camp has also announced Java BluePrints for AJAX Components , which aims to provide the same guidelines in the Java world as Atlas in .NET, providing a basis for building AJAX applications around JSF technology and the new reference implementation of the Java EE stack, Glassfish.