Web Applications in my world "Client Side"

I thought it best to write 2 seperate articles:the first (this one) focuses on the client-side (browser),and the second on the
server side (which for me, would mean PHP)

In an ideal world,web developers would be distinct from web designers.we are far from ideal and i normally find myself doing design.the tools in my arsenal include Dreamweaver,jQuery, Firefox + Webdeveloper,Firebug,Yslow plugins and Aptana studio.

i normally start off with Dreamweaver for UI design in plain HTML,switch to Aptana to incrementally fill in business logic (thankfully,php work well as a with R.A.D. language).

I occasionally have to handcraft Javascript,which could be a pain to debug without the above-mentioned firefox plugins (alert(),anybody?)

Ajax,as a technology, has it's share of critics,but if you call yourself a web developer and haven't started using it,you need to get with the program.You can choose one of many libraries and stick with it,my weapon of choice is jQuery.

Ajax has ramifications on the user experience,i think GMail has been used as an example too many times,so I'll pose a generic scenario. Suppose you have a table/grid with 1 729 rows,and the user deletes a single row- wouldn't it be too drastic, to reload the entire page just to remove single record? An async call without a page reload would be more efficient,and it's easier than you think.

Incidentally, Microsoft will be shipping jQuery with Visual Studio,for those who develop in .NET

Debugging an ajax app is similar to debugging a multi-threaded program- it can be a pain, but with the right tool set,it can be done.More so with proper planning and keeping things simple.

If there's one thing i hate on client side - it is tweaking CSS for IE to make pages render correctly.i design with Firefox in mind.If the application is for an environment i have control over (such as client LAN), i don't bother with IE support,instead,I install Firefox on every box.