Thomas Fuchs
Hi, I'm Thomas Fuchs. I'm the author of Zepto.js, of script.aculo.us, and I'm a Ruby on Rails core alumnus. With Amy Hoy I'm building cheerful software, like Noko Time Tracking and Every Time Zone and write books like Retinafy.me.
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Audible Ajax Interview

January 9th, 2006

The lastest episode of the Audbile Ajax Podcast is all about script.aculo.us, web usability and other subjects:

Some of the first “wow” moments were due to the effects created by Thomas Fuchs in his Script.aculo.us library that builds on top of Prototype. Many people didn’t realise that with one line of JavaScript code they could get such a nice effect to happen, and now ugly developer-created sites have a chance 😉

We had the pleasure of interviewing Thomas, an we got to discuss his frameworks, and gain knowledge from his experience.

What you will learn in this podcast

  • How script.acuo.us was born out of a real project
  • Why Rails was chosen for Fluxiom
  • Where Rails shines with Ajax
  • The new RJS templates feature that makes Ajax even easier
  • The difference between Prototype and Script.aculo.us
  • How Script.aculo.us is available in Rails 1.0
  • Future plans for Script.aculo.us
  • When you should use the cool effects, and when you should not
  • About drag and drop and web usability
  • Challenges that Thomas has faced with his Ajax projects
  • Why you would choose an Ajax application versus using other technologies such as Flash
  • How hard it is to build a very rich Ajax application
  • How to handle browser differences
  • Experiences with DOM manipulation and innerHTML
  • How naming collisions are not as much of an issue in recent builds of Prototype

So, tune right in!