Is it worth learning ASP.Net AJAX

Question

Hi All,

I know this is a duplicate kind of question. I have worked with ASP.Net and ASP.Net MVC 1.0. I never really got a chance to get into ASP.Net AJAX.

My question is it really worth to invest in learning ASP.Net AJAX 3.5 or 4.0 given the fact, I have hardly used it ?

Please let me know your advise.

EDIT : - Thanks all for your response. Robert\Justin\etc have provided valuable insight.

I have a copy of ASP.Net AJAX In Action in my office library. My guess this book should be pretty enough for me, though It was for ASP.Net 2.0. Do I need to invest in books\Time for ASP.Net AJAX 3.5 or 4.0 ?

Answer 1

Are you interested in it? Do you think you might want to use it someday for something? Do you want to make sure you're equipped to use the best tools for the problem at hand?

If you answered yes (to any of them), you should invest the time to learn it.

You can never hurt yourself by learning new things (as long as you learn how to properly apply them).

Answer 2

ASP.Net AJAX is probably not worth learning if you're going to stick with Asp.Net MVC going forward. Or to put it another way... You can spend your time and resources learning something else.

It's not that it's a bad framework, it's good. But it's designed to make javascript familiar to .Net Developers who are used to the Webforms model.

I suspect that MS has de-emphasized the role asp.net Ajax will play in the future.

Answer 3

ASP.net ajax is a pretty terrible library, compared to the alternatives. The only reason to use it is if you are using the asp.net ajax controls.

Answer 4

Yes. Learn as much as you can as often as you can. While you may never use these skiils directly, the experience and breadth of knowledge will help you in any situation.

Answer 5

There are so many Ajax Libraries out there, is not even funny. Here is a good link on what is out there.

Since we already use ASP.net, I made sure to spend a little bit of time familiarizing myself with asp.net ajax. Just enough to do the basics. However, for everything else, we use jQuery, which, by the way, integrates nicely with ASP.Net. Have you ever wondered why the ASP.Net team has started supporting jQuery: intellisense, included scripts, contributing to the project, doing demos with it, etc...

So here is my 2 cents. Look into the basics in asp.net ajax but focus your efforts into, IMHO, a better library like jQuery.

Good luck! -D

Answer 6

If you have an understanding of ASP.NET already, I'm assuming you also understand JavaScript and etc. As a result, AJAX wouldn't buy you that much (unless you're on a project that requires knowing it). If you plan on being a web developer for any length of time, I would say that Silverlight and/or jQuery would be much more valuable than Ajax.