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I'm the author of this article and would appreciate any feedback/thoughts. I included just a few examples on the graphic (mostly from memory as I was lucky enou

I'm the author of this article and would appreciate any feedback/thoughts. I included just a few examples on the graphic (mostly from memory as I was lucky enough to come of age in 1990 so lived through it). I remember when Yahoo mail came along with AJAX and how astonishing it was to not have to refresh to get new mail. Although, over a dial up connection, I'm not sure how "realtime" anything was :)

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epc 4y ago
So, there's an intermediate phase missing before AJAX. From roughly 1996 until the nascent stages of the AJAX era we used the Refresh attribute. This could be a <meta> tag in the header of the HTML content or you could send it as an HTTP header. While some sites refreshed the entire page this way, it was more useful for content served in frames/iframes (like headlines or sport scores or…urgh…advertising).
- epc 4y ago
  More pointedly, the Australian Open site (then ausopen.org, now apparently ausopen.com) used the Refresh: header to serve dynamic-ish scoring data and headlines circa 1997-1999 (I worked on the periphery of it through the 1999 open).
m0llusk 4y ago
Using Reddit as an example of a good user interface is going to turn some people off. Arguably Reddit is an example of everything that goes wrong here. The interface is less informative and usable than it used to be so that it can get in people's faces with irrelevant updates and endless ads. And on top of that it tends to be slow and prone to going dead. Perhaps real time applications may in time through experience lead to real quiet and real politely well behaved applications?
- stichers 4y ago
  Thanks for your feedback! I'm not sure I said it's a good user interface (I'm not a visual person so wouldn't have the confidence) but I do think it's a good example of a set of features that show a community interacting in realtime. Maybe I didn't make that clear in the article so I'll bear in mind for future writing. TY!

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epc 4y ago

So, there's an intermediate phase missing before AJAX. From roughly 1996 until the nascent stages of the AJAX era we used the Refresh attribute. This could be a <meta> tag in the header of the HTML content or you could send it as an HTTP header. While some sites refreshed the entire page this way, it was more useful for content served in frames/iframes (like headlines or sport scores or…urgh…advertising).

epc 4y ago
More pointedly, the Australian Open site (then ausopen.org, now apparently ausopen.com) used the Refresh: header to serve dynamic-ish scoring data and headlines circa 1997-1999 (I worked on the periphery of it through the 1999 open).

m0llusk 4y ago

Using Reddit as an example of a good user interface is going to turn some people off. Arguably Reddit is an example of everything that goes wrong here. The interface is less informative and usable than it used to be so that it can get in people's faces with irrelevant updates and endless ads. And on top of that it tends to be slow and prone to going dead. Perhaps real time applications may in time through experience lead to real quiet and real politely well behaved applications?

stichers 4y ago
Thanks for your feedback! I'm not sure I said it's a good user interface (I'm not a visual person so wouldn't have the confidence) but I do think it's a good example of a set of features that show a community interacting in realtime. Maybe I didn't make that clear in the article so I'll bear in mind for future writing. TY!