The 0.9.0 beta xdomain build is up on the AOL CDN. What does this mean? You can try out 0.9.0beta without having to download it. Just use this script tag in your HTML page and start playing:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://o.aolcdn.com/dojo/0.9.0beta/dojo/dojo.xd.js"></script>
More information and a sample HTML page the demonstrates correct usage can be found here:
http://build.dojotoolkit.org/0.9.0beta/
The CDN automatically serves gzipped content, so you get all of the base Dojo 0.9 goodness, like dojo.query, dojo.connect and dojo.xhr* from the dojo.xd.js file in 26KB (the xd build is slightly larger than the non-xd build because it includes the xd loader and dojo.i18n).
with announcements like these...
Why are such meaningless anouncements placed on the dojo home page? This stuff is worthy of forum at best. You guys are at risk of devalueing the meaning of anything that is announced here which is a shame for such a great core library.
I don't think you understood the XD goodness.
I don't think you understood the XD goodness. As soon as it was announced I switched some of my web sites to the AOL-hosted Dojo. This is very cool --- it reduces load on your servers, distributes Dojo-related files geographically (closer to your users), renders your pages faster by asynchronously loading Dojo modules, and improves the overall performance.
And all I needed to do was to change a script URL and a CSS URL (I use Tundra skin). Woot!
Not the case
This is useful you know, it shows off how fast the new dojo code loads off a gzip enabled server and it's a demonstration of cross domain dojo in 0.9.
Well done on the 0.9b release, it looks and feels great and the small file sizes make it much more usable for general public websites. Thank you!
Fair enough
The small code size of 0.9 has nothing to do with announcing that its available from public website. I could download the nightly build of 0.9 and host it on my own site and announce it to the world. Who cares?
Proxy cache users
It is just a bunch of files you can host, but I thought the point of this AOL CDN hosting is that proxy caches at the ISP/corporate side will hang onto these files with a greater likelyhood of a cache hit across totally unrelated websites (because the AOL URL is the same) and therefore deliver the dojo files to the end users faster for lots of different sites. Also because of browser connection limits per domain it can mean that dojo loads simultaneously with your site, off a very fast reliable network.
glad that was obvious to everybody
So because the AOL webserver has a caching mechanism, which is somehow newsworthy and different from anybody who cares to download the Apache or other production strength web servers, downloading and hosting the dojo 0.9 build is worthy of headline news on the dojo website? Come on! For the majority of the world for whom AOL is of no relevence, so to is this discussion thread. While I'm at it, "Summer of code" only ever to applies to half of the world.
wow...
Ok lets try and break this down so you an get an understanding of it. The AOL CDN has nothing to do with AOL other than the fact they they put time into one of their developers to help put it together AND they host it for Dojo. The AOL CDN is Dojo's showcase for Cross Domain (thats what all the xd comments refer to...) javascript. What this means to the average person is that they can test their applications or websites that they write using Dojo with the latest Dojo release without having to change anything other than the SRC path in their application for dojo.js. They dont have to download a single file... if it works fairly well they can migrate their site over to the latest release and setup Dojo on their local site. If not... they know they need to sort some things out still. For the user who has limited webspace (and yes there are still people out there that use free sites that have little to no disk space) the AOL CDN means they aren't wasting diskspace on adding eyecandy to their site.
So to say that the Xdomain Dojo announcement regarding the AOL CDN is worthless and devalueing is the devalueing thing. Not the announcement itself. Just because you dont understand its purpose, reason, or usefulness doesn't make it any less valueable to the rest of the world.
As for the Summer of Code, it happens the same time, every year, for everyone... not quite sure what half of the world isn't given a chance to participate but it does apply to the whole world.
My apologies you are such a bitter person, but that alone does not affect the price of rice in China (or the US for that matter (since we are talking about "half of the world" so much here)).
-Karl
thanks for the explanation
I'm not bitter about anything. I'm just interested in what is going on with dojo and keep watch on the developments on the homepage everyday and sometimes wonder exactly what it is that people get excited about with some of these announcements that can sometimes do with additional explanation. The summer of code comment was to do with the fact that for half the world it is winter at this time of year.
Worldwide CDN
The CDN used by AOL is "a worldwide CDN that uses geographic edge caching. This means that your users who access files from http://o.aolcdn.com/dojo will receive them from a location that is geographically near them (where possible), allowing fast delivery of the files."
So there is benefit to people around the world that would like to try Dojo out without having to download anything. If you like, consider the announcement "Dojo xdomain build on a worldwide CDN (the one used by AOL) with geographic edge caching". A fairly small number of entities can claim to offer that (for free), which seems newsworthy.
It was totally newsworthy
It was totally newsworthy --- it was the major announcement. Thank you for your hard work to make it happen.
This is just too cool
Wow. Just wow. 0.9's speed is great anyway compared with 0.4x, but combining that with the geographic caching and gzipping of the AOL CDN -- well, it just blows away the 0.4x problems with load time. In a big way. But more to the point, the XD goodness means that smaller sites (like mine) can do this with whatever service we want, whether it be AOL's CDN, Amazon's, Google's, or Akamai, while keeping our dynamic pages on our own servers.
Brilliant.
Obviously the AOL freebie comes with no guarantees, etc., but other than that is there any reason we shouldn't use it for live stuff? Or is it just for development?
--
T.J. Crowder
tj at crowdersoftware dot com
Usable for production
Using it for production use depends on how comfortable you are with a dependency on another site. I would be fine using it for my production app, but I work for AOL. It is true that they offer no guarantees, but it seems to me that it would have to be pretty reliable if they use the same CDN for their own sites.
Part of that no guarantees thing means it could go away in the future, but if I could save on some hosting costs in the here and now, it still seems like a good deal.
The nice thing about the Dojo module system, is that if you do decide to switch to another XD installation or even a local one, you just need to change your dojo.js script tag and possibly some djConfig settings, and your web app code is good to go.
Great, thanks!
Sure, any time you're using a freebie like this, you should be prepared to fall back (and without complaint, people!) if it disappears, and fair 'nuff -- tanstaafl. :-)
Thanks again for doing the xdomain stuff and putting it up there,
--
T.J. Crowder
tj at crowdersoftware dot com
Thanks for xd from CDN
Thanks again for the great xd build from AOL.