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Yahoo Releases Free UI Library

As noted on Boing Boing, Yahoo! just released its UI Library, an open-source set of AJAX user interface components that developers can use in their sites for free!

From Trees to Sliders, some of these components look quite slick! The real challenge here is not getting them to work with Oracle ApEx, but rather finding practical applications for them. So often I see sites where AJAX is used for the sake of using AJAX, and the result is just a mess.

What intriques me are the reasons behind this. As I've been told many times, there is no such thing as a free anyyhing - it's just a question of when and how you pay. Perhaps Yahoo is trying to steer developers to its services (Maps, Calendar, Mail, etc.) in a pre-emptive strike against Google?

Should be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Comments

Anonymous said…
It's actually quite clear what some of these AJAX "toys" do

- tree = org chart
- slider = floating point numerical input

You should take a look at some of the real uses with AJAX, they come out great. Eric P does a great job with all of his work and is great as a teacher as well.
February 15, 2006 at 7:07 AM
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