Joining the ASP.NET AJAX Feature Team

Hey, I am shifting teams at Microsoft! A little more than a year ago, I started working at Microsoft on the www.ASP.net community team creating ASP.NET MVC content. Over the past year, I’ve been doing things like speaking at a lot of conferences (PDC, Tech-Ed Emea, Tech-Ed India, MIX, ASP.NET Connections), writing a lot of tutorials and recording a lot of videos, and finishing a book. It has been an intense experience.clip_image001

Next week, I am officially joining the ASP.NET team as a feature PM with a focus on ASP.NET AJAX. I’m going to be working on the Microsoft AJAX Framework and the AJAX Control Toolkit. I get to write specs!

I’m really excited about Ajax. Anyone who has read my latest ASP.NET Unleashed book or who has heard me speak at any conference over the last 4 years knows that I am an Ajax fanatic. There is some really exciting stuff that we are working on for the next version of ASP.NET AJAX. And, I am really excited to work with the other members of the ASP.NET team – Boris Rivers-Moore, Simon Calvert, Scott Hunter, Stefan Schackow, Scott Galloway, Phil Haack.

I do need to change the title of my blog.I’m still going to write on ASP.NET MVC, but I’m going to start writing much more about Ajax.

Discussion

  1. farrio says:

    congratulations! looking forward to read more posts about ajax :)

  2. Dave Ward says:

    When I saw you using Firefox/bug instead of IE at MIX, I knew I would probably enjoy the rest of the talk. Nice to see you joining the ASP.NET team!

  3. Codie says:

    Hey that cool your going to be making AJAX posts, but will you be making ajax posts with web forms or MVC?

  4. Dave says:

    Well, ajax can be of good use, just like Flash. Both in most cases ajax is used in a wrong way.

    You can present a product list by using ajax. It looks fancy and it might be a bit faster. But most people forget about spiders. Spiders don’t do javascript and can therefor not run the ajax methodes needed to get a product list.

    For google (and MSN/Live/Bing search probably either) you can provide a sitemap and have a low-tech version of your product listing- and details pages.

    But what about the folks that are running extensions/add-ons like NoScript? They cannot properly visit your website.

    So, the real trick is to make a normal site and use for instance jQuery to override some buttons and links (like paging).

    But thats just my two (euro) cents.

  5. Alex says:

    Looking forward to see your work in action.

  6. folorunso says:

    Great! But we would like to know who is replacing you for ASP.NET MVC bloggings.

  7. Congrats… ;)

    There are currently big moves at Microsoft (i.e. .NET MF), looking forward to see me .NET products.

  8. Congrats!
    Looking forward to read some interesting articles on Ajax :)

  9. Congratulations St.!

  10. Mukhtar says:

    Hi Stephen,

    This is great! From the materials I’ve seen of MVC – I’m really not a fan of it. It’s just another way of doing everything .Net does.

    As browsers become ever more powerful, you’ll want as much work done on the client as possible. AJAX definitely is one of the ways to go about this, and by creating as much controls as possible it will allow an enhanced user experience.

    There’s loads of frameworks out there: SPRY, DOJO, Mootoo e.t.c. If a community could be formulated to have everyone come together and collaborate, this would be the utopian way of advancing the technology.

  11. Brian says:

    First thing to do. Introduce the term “Unobtrusive Javascript” to ajax folks. Nobody in microsoft seems to have heard of it despite the world and it’s mother embracing it wholeheartedly. I know you can bring them round.

  12. Seems great.

    You did a great contribution for the community on Asp Net MVC.

  13. Chris Bower says:

    Hi stephen great news about joining the Ajax team, do you think that there will be a push for using the mvc pattern with the Ajax Client library?

  14. Avinash says:

    Hello

  15. Kudos on joining the ASP.NET AJAX Feature team! Does that explain your ‘being the first’ to announce the release of new ASP.NET AJAX controls during your tech.ed trip to Hyderabad?

  16. Yash says:

    Good, I am sure you will do a great job over there!!!!

    Thanks for blog entires , they are really very informative..

    Thanks,
    Yash

  17. Willie says:

    Congratulation Stephen in your new assignment. I am looking forward to your ASP.NET AJAX blog and more tutorials which greatly helps the developer community.

  18. sorry I don’t know!I from china(我来自中国)I con’t speak English

  19. @Mukhtar: such a community exists: http://www.openajax.org. Microsoft is a member.

  20. Congrats from Chile :)
    go go go!

  21. developer says:

    does this mean MVC dead?

  22. bman says:

    Who is going to be the MVC guru then??

  23. Jack says:

    Congratulations! ASP.NET AJAX Feature Team is a cool team, and lead our developers to cool features and UX.

  24. All the best for your future endeavours. Will read your blog.

    Thanks,
    Thani

  25. Mukhtar says:

    @Bertand: Thanks! I had no idea how far the standardisation of the technology had become. AJAX definitely is the way to go and now that Stephen has ‘joined the club’ I’m sure there’s going to be even greater developments soon.

    I liked the posts on your site as well :)

  26. @bman — There is a new MVC guru coming to the ASP.NET community team — but I’ll let that be a surprise.

  27. Srikanth Bhakthan says:

    Congratulations! All the best with your new role.

  28. Green Williams says:

    I do not care what you or someone else does with your life. All I care about is that you do a good job in making my job easier and highly productive. The focus is on me, not you. So, if you joining something does this better, then great. If not, then there is a problem you urgently need to fix. The finger to all those offended by this.

  29. Purple Williams says:

    Hmmmmph. Well, single digits to you too, Mr. Crabby-Pants.

  30. shekhar says:

    hi

  31. Elijah Manor says:

    So I guess you are going to update the banner image on top to be “Stephen Walther on ASP.NET AJAX” instead of MVC :)

    Thanks for all your previous posts on MVC. You helped me get up to speed quickly when I first picked up MVC.

    Congrats on your move to the AJAX team!

  32. rickj says:

    When is your MVC Unleashed book comming out is it going to be as usefull as ASP.NET Unleashed
    I can tak any on of your examples and tweek it around to work on my projects I haven’t quite read it from front to back yet but allmost Great Piece of work and I’m looking forward to MVC Unleashed Thanks and I’m glad your going into Ajax because ther are a number of things that could be made clearer

  33. mehedi says:

    I like to join this community and want to learn about the update of every ajax file.

  34. Chris Moseley says:

    Congratulations on the new role, I hope you enjoy it. You’ve dome some great work surrounding MVC so I’m looking forward to you bringing the same enthusiasm into ASP.NET AJAX.

    Personally, what I’d like to see from ASP.Net AJAX in the future is a greater focus on performance and… lightweightness (I realise that isn’t a word :) ). I think, currently, ASP.Net AJAX shows lots of potential but is a little bloated in some areas. As performance is hugely important in my role, I tend to favour other js frameworks/libraries such as jquery. But then, of course, I lose the close coupling between my server-side code and my client-side code. I was very pleased to hear about the colaboration between between Microsoft and jquery. I hope that continues and I’d love to see the two libraries become even more closely integrated.

    All the best.

  35. Venu M says:

    Hi Mr. Stephen, How are you? I hope you are fine, I’m the one who met you on the first day of Microsoft TECH Ed.’09 india while you were having some nice coffee during mornin brek fast hr, Really had a nice chat with u and attended your seminar, Really you are amazing techy geek, I was impressed by your seminar on ASP.NET 4.0 & MVC, Had a great experience with you, Even i posted both of our pics which were captured during morning hr.

    Please visit the below link:
    Pics url: http://www.venumanthena.com/…ft%20teched%20attendee.php

    I’m expecting your feedback on my personal site
    My personal site URL: http://www.venumanthena.com

    Can i have your contact e-mail address, plz

  36. Danny says:

    Mr. Walther,

    Best of luck in your new assignment.
    Will you still be working for the GU ?

    Your MVC tips, how-to videos and upcoming MVC
    Unleashed book are much appreciated.

    Thanks

  37. Sivagurunathan says:

    Best of luck Walther.

  38. Jeff Ancel says:

    Congrats to you Stephen. Is there a date on the MVC Unleashed book?

  39. Chris says:

    Looking forward to seeing your work!

  40. Ray says:

    Hi Stephen,

    Tried to contact you, but contact form on this site does not work.

    Thanks,
    Ray.

  41. Waqas says:

    best of luck

  42. MaYHeM says:

    I just LOVE how developers come out of the wood works with whatever they are most interested in, claiming the world to have wholeheartedly embraced such and such.

    Assumptions are the plague on innovation.
    I’m looking at you Brian…
    http://www.systemdotweb.com/

    AND

    While you’re rightly oriented Green Williams, you’re a smacktard commentator. Take that digit and place it squarely…

  43. nuwan says:

    Looking forward for better…. AJAX enables web

  44. Prasad says:

    Looking forward to some great features Mr.PM!

  45. Nice summary, even if they included all you ask I bet you will not turn your back on jQuery, jq will always be 5 steps ahead even if MS ploughed phil haacked and hansleman onto the project. I wish they would just embrace and use jQuery instead of trying to copy it, why re-invent the wheel just seems such a waste of time and effort, must be deflating coming into work to try and replicate jQuery but know your not going to do it as well!

  46. Congratulations Stephen. Looking forward to see your great posts.

  47. Great Stephen! I think your excitement gives me a boost to learn more about AJAX from you.

  48. Congrats. I am waiting to see your excellent post.

  49. Congratulations!..it is veryo nice

  50. Bala says:

    Congrats stephen,
    Would like to see ur post on Ajax.

  51. HI stephen, Nice job! But i would like to know who is responsible to replace you from microsoft to ASP.NET MVC bloggings?

  52. seo india says:

    Congratulations! All the best.

  53. seo says:

    Congratulations!..it is veryo nice

  54. seotips says:

    Congrats!
    Looking forward to read some interesting articles on Ajax :)

  55. seo-tips says:

    Thanks for the links

  56. bookmarking says:

    Great!

    here more information

  57. seo-tips says:

    interesting post.

  58. website says:

    Thanks for sharing links.

  59. graphic says:

    Nice to see the ongoing.

  60. googleseo says:

    Awesome! links.

  61. adsense says:

    Awesome! links. Thanks

  62. sem-tips says:

    maintaining your .NET Framework 2.0 + AJAX

  63. seo-benefits says:

    Thanks for the links.

  64. seo says:

    Interesting info.

  65. you have been doing things like speaking at a lot of conferences (PDC, Tech-Ed Emea, Tech-Ed India, MIX, ASP.NET Connections) seem like good but unfortunately someone replace you from microsoft to ASP.NET MVC bloggings. try your best!

  66. Hey, I am shifting teams at Microsoft! A little more than a year ago, I started working at Microsoft on the http://www.ASP.net community team creating ASP.NET MVC content. Over the past year, I’ve been doing things like speaking at a lot of conferences (PDC, Tech-Ed Emea, Tech-Ed India, MIX, ASP.NET Connections), writing a lot of tutorials and recording a lot of videos, and finishing a book. It has been an intense experience.

  67. prom corsage says:

    I wish they would just embrace and use jQuery instead of trying to copy it, why re-invent the wheel just seems such a waste of time and effort, must be deflating coming into work to try and replicate jQuery but know your not going to do it as well!

  68. Asif Ashraf says:

    Congraaaaaaaats!!!

  69. Steve Smith says:

    Congrats, Stephen. Looking forward to more great stuff from your and the team!

  70. Diwakar says:

    hi.. i m diwakar a student completed my bca and also going for mca. now a days i m free and wanted to learn asp.net but i haven’t any idea of asp,i haven’t any latest version of book also.. and not any faculty to guide me, sp i wanted to the latest version of asp in c# book for designing and programming.so if it is possible then please help me….
    thank you

  71. Thanks , nice explanation.

  72. Bhupendra Goswami says:

    Congrats, Stephen.

    Looking forward to more great stuff from your and the team!

  73. Jeff Kingery says:

    Congratulations Stephen.

    As for the blog title – you could just drop the last 3 letters…

  74. education says:

    Congratulations Stephen.

  75. will says:

    Ajax the best

  76. fre we
    Very good example is given in attachment. I understand that very well. Thanks.

  77. few 23
    Very good example is given in attachment. I understand that very well. Thanks.

  78. i wanted to the latest version of asp in c# book for designing and programming.so if it is possible then please help me….

  79. Pretty good post.Very good example is given in attachment. I understand that very well. Thanks.

  80. Term papers says:

    I must admit, very useful tips and instructions.

  81. chlamydien says:

    I think As browsers become ever more powerful, you’ll want as much work done on the client as possible. AJAX definitely is one of the ways to go about this, and by creating as much controls as possible it will allow an enhanced user experience.

  82. f334 Great Post! Very good introduction is given. Very useful also. Thanks Stephen

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