Ajaxian

Monday, January 30th, 2006

Hosting JavaScript on CDNs? AOL announces the hosting of Dojo

Category: Dojo, Editorial

<p>Back in December we talked about hosting JavaScript on CDNs.

If a thousand applications that your browser has accessed use Dojo or Prototye (or ...), then you have many copies of the same file. Wouldn't it be nice to have these on a CDN and have that take care of it?

We even wanted versioning to be built in, a la maven:

PLAIN TEXT

JAVASCRIPT:

1.  
2. dojo.require("dojo.io.*", "0.3");
3.  

or:

PLAIN TEXT

HTML:

1.  
2. <script type="text/javascript" src="http://cdn/getlibrary?name=dojo-kitchen-sink&version=0.3"></script>
3.  

Well, it turns out that this isn't pie in the sky as AOL is now offering the Dojo Toolkit.

How did this come about?

AOL recently launched a site called I Am Alpha which builds on web standards and your IM network to build and host and lightweight widgets in customzied “container� pages. Think of it as a personalized homepage++; not only can you customize based on the widgets they provide, you can easily construct your own!

I Am Alpha “widgets� are just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript pages that conform to a new microformat. It’s standards-based personal publishing and aggregation on a grand scale. To that end, AOL has selected Dojo as one of the libraries available for use with the platform and put the Ajax build of Dojo 0.2.2 in their Content Distribution Network.

You can use the AOL CDN via:

PLAIN TEXT

HTML:

1.  
2. <script type='text/javascript'>
3.   djConfig = {
4.     // your local src/ directory is located at domain.com/path/to/local/dojo-0.2.2-ajax/src/
5.     baseRelativePath: '/path/to/local/dojo-0.2.2-ajax/'
6.   };
7. </script>
8. <script type='text/javascript'
9.     src='http://o.aolcdn.com/iamalpha/.resource/jssdk/dojo-0.2.2/dojo.js'></script>
10. <script type='text/javascript'>
11.   // pull in the storage APIs
12.   dojo.require('dojo.storage.*');
13.   // or the JSON utilities
14.   dojo.require('dojo.json');
15. </script>
16.  

Very cool indeed.

Related Content:

• Sun gets serious about Ajax
  Sun Microsystems Inc. demonstrates a commitment to Ajax with its new involvement with to alliances working on Ajax technology, the OpenAJAX Alliance...
• jQuery finds important role in Ajax-style open source framework development
  The jQuery open source library and framework has gained greater attention among a slate of frameworks that includes Dojo, Prototype, GWT and others....
• Ajax framework released
  Simplified Ajax development is the goal of a new framework from Emergetk, released under the General Public License (GPL). It is written in C# and the...
• Hot skills: Dojo encourages Ajax innovation
  What is it? In April 2006, a reviewer provided a round-up of 50 different Ajax frameworks and toolsets - and the number has certainly increased since...
• EGL Rich UI on IBM i: Do you Dojo?
  Taking advantage of the Rich UI features of EGL architecture on the AS/400 can save you time and complexity. Rich internet applications can be...

Posted by Dion Almaer at 8:04 pm
12 Comments

4.6 rating from 16 votes

12 Comments »

Comments feed TrackBack URI

and CDN stands for?….

Comment by thicko — January 31, 2006

Last sentence before code: Content Distribution Network.

Comment by badkungfu — January 31, 2006

[...] Shawn Carnell (one of the folks behind AOL’s coolio modules stuff (see Iamalpha) reports that they met with the Ajaxian dudes. [...]

Pingback by Marc’s Voice » Blog Archive » AOL’s modules use Dojo — January 31, 2006

So what happens when they go down?

Comment by ceejayoz — January 31, 2006

Well, I’ve not done an exaustive study but since you supply a url from your website as well as the CDN, I’m guessing that it falls back on your site?

=C=

Comment by Cal Evans — January 31, 2006

CDN’s by nature normally don’t go down.

Comment by Bob — March 22, 2006

[...] Here is a list of links that I bookmarked in recent few week about AJAX and related technologies. Hosting JavaScript on CDNs? AOL announces the hosting of Dojo Javascript libraries roundup Dojo Framework Roadmap (pro inspiraci) Preloading Data with Ajax and JSON [...]

Pingback by MARTIN WISO » Blog Archive » Some interesting links from last week — March 25, 2006

Anyone know if they are going to put .3 up on the CDN?..With the xDomain support?…

Comment by Phill Kenoyer — May 20, 2006

Well, I’ve not done an exaustive study but since you supply a url from your website as well as the CDN, I’m guessing that it falls back on your site?

Comment by internet backgammon — June 15, 2006

thanks

Comment by Web Hosting Reviews — August 19, 2007

Great! =)

Comment by winto — September 3, 2007

No thanks, Russian, I went looking for a nerdy girl with good database skills, and long since found and married her.

Now back on topic — found this looking for that definintion of “CDN” (meaning something like Akamai, that holds copies of big commercial web pages like Apple’s and serves them out, saving the company the risk and trouble of hosting all their own pages themselves — right?)

Because I saw this:

http://seclists.org/bugtraq/2007/Nov/0284.html

Banks (Wellsfargo.com) using CDNs to deliver Javascript: enables password theft by anyone compromising or controlling the CDN

Comment by Hank Roberts — November 20, 2007