MS rolling out Ajax toolkit

Looks like Microsoft will be rolling out an Ajax-enabling toolkit called Atlas.

Microsoft's Atlas is a "Web client framework" designed to make the job of building AJAX-style applications simpler, said Charles Fitzgerald, the company's general manager for platform technologies.

"People who do (AJAX development) are rocket scientists," Fitzgerald said. "In some ways, this papers over the mess that is JavaScript development. It's easy-to-build 'spaghetti' code."

Atlas--which is a downloadable piece of JavaScript code--gives developers a more structured environment for building applications, providing time-saving services such as an object model and debugging, he said. It will work across any Web browser that supports AJAX technologies.

The "rocket science" quote is funny, 'cause one of the questions posed at the Ajax Summit I attended last month was along the lines of "is Ajax rocket science?" Answer: only if you want to build rockets.