Improving Browser Experience through Redshift

The popularity of JavaScript is now more than five years since Ajax was introduced. As the main programming language for Ajax, developers would have to learn JavaScript or else learn to build an Ajax based application with the help of frameworks.

Although frameworks could provide the expected functions without learning JavaScript, the preset functions of frameworks considerably limits the ability of the developer to be creative in building an Ajax based applications.

There are frameworks that provides an almost unlimited options for customization, but it is still different when developing an Ajax based application by coding JavaScript.

Enter Redshift

On the other hand, learning JavaScript is not for the faint of heart. It will take developers months or even a year before they could fully understand how to work with JavaScript. Worst, the basic JavaScript will not even let developers build a decent Ajax based application.

If you do not have time to learn JavaScript but would like to build an Ajax based application, there is an alternative. Redshift is increasingly becoming popular among developers as a translator of Ruby to JavaScript. Before we proceed further let me clarify that this is not a framework.

A framework is already set with functions that you can configure to build an Ajax based applications. Other programming languages are used in most frameworks for additional functions.

Redshift on the other hand is a translator - it does not have any native functions but will just translate Ruby into JavaScript. The functions and data will be replicated by Redshift and implemented in the browser as JavaScript.

What makes this possible is the presence of the function Ruby.js. This functions enable the translated functions of JavaScript to call the laden library of Ruby located in server.

Developers will somehow build an application that runs in JavaScript but the code originally runs on Ruby. The presence of Ruby.js ensures the functions will be working according to the expectations of developers.

Comparing Redshift to GWT

GWT or Google Web Toolkit almost offers the same features with Redshift. The key differences here are based on two things: first, GWT is essentially a remote scripting tool that lets developers change the settings of the application by changing the original Java.

The second difference is again, the presence of Ruby.js which enables the library to properly implement functions. Of course, there is the obvious difference of Ruby and Java as the programming language of choice.

To properly use Redshift, developers would have to learn Ruby which may defeat the purpose of avoiding to learn a new programming language to speed up application development. But when you consider the difficulty of understanding JavaScript compared to Ruby, the latter programming language is a lot easier to learn.

Ruby is basically another framework for Ajax but have been significantly developed to provide more functions. That is why it would be easier for developers to learn Ruby since they are already laden with functions.

Redshift will practically ease the development process of building an Ajax based application. Through bypassing frameworks and directly translating the function, developers should be able to build an effective Ajax based application without learning JavaScript.