Lawrence Mandel, Jen Hawkins, Aron Wallaker and Jeffrey Liu, IBM Canada

Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) programming is currently at the forefront of Rich Internet Application (RIA) technology and is commonly cited as a major driver of Web 2.0. The rapid growth in the popularity of Ajax has highlighted the need for toolkits to support common functionality and speed development. This talk will position Ajax relative to other RIA solutions and introduce the technologies behind Ajax that have contributed to its popularity. Following this general introduction, we will examine some of the popular Ajax toolkits now available and review the current state of development and testing tools for building Ajax applications. This talk will conclude with a short demo of an Ajax-enabled web site.

Lawrence Mandel, a software developer at the IBM Toronto Laboratory, is the release engineering and install lead for a new enterprise reporting product for IBM Rational. Previously he worked on Web development tools including the Eclipse Web Tools Platform project and Rational Application Developer. Lawrence is also leading the Apache Woden project and is a coauthor of the book Eclipse Web Tools Platform: Developing Java Web Applications. Lawrence graduated from the University of Toronto with an Hon. B.Sc. in Computer Science and Human Biology.

Jen Hawkins is a software developer with the WebSphere Commerce Early Programs team. Her team is responsible for running alpha and beta programs for customers interested in trying out the latest product features. She specializes in product customization training and support including the use of the Dojo and OpenLaszlo toolkits in the WebSphere Commerce product. Jen holds a BMath degree in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo and has been with IBM since 2000.

Aron Wallaker is an IT Specialist in IBM Software Services for WebSphere at the Toronto software lab. ISSW helps customers to adopt IBM's WebSphere software products and successfully deploy solutions based on these products. Aron has been actively working with WebSphere Application Server and WebSphere Portal Server for the past five years and has been active in finding new ways to add AJAX functionality to portlets running under Portal Server.

Jeffrey Liu is a software developer at the IBM Toronto Lab. He is responsible for the development of a new enterprise reporting product for IBM Rational. Jeffrey joined IBM in 2001 after graduating with distinction from the University of British Columbia with a B.A.Sc in Computer Engineering, Commerce minor.