The more I am looking at Jaxer the more I like it. The, write an entire web app in one HTML file is fascinating. It is possible to do the same with PHP.

But, what I think you guys need to promote along with Jaxer is the combination of Adobe AIR. (1.0 finally released and a Linux Version)

So, correct me if I am wrong, but using Jaxer and Adobe AIR, it is possible to make an offline/online Application (built using HTML,CSS,JS,Jaxer)!

Although, AIR is a bit slow, it is still fascinating to realize one can program a Natively run App written entirely using Web languages, but without the need for a Web Browser!

The server-side javascript is actually stored on the server… there’s absolutely nothing transmitted (aside from call-back data) from the client to the server. We’ve also done some speed comparison, and as you’d expect, PHP does come out ahead of Jaxer, but Jaxer is not terribly far behind. Granted, we didn’t test with APC, but that wouldn’t really be apples-to-apples.

The other thing I’d like to comment on is your thought that we’ve “extended” JS to the server. It isn’t extended in any way… it IS Javascript, and that’s what makes it so cool! We use the mozilla engine to create a server-side DOM and JS environment, that behaves like the client-side. You just get to reap all the benefits of having JavaScript on the server now. And since its on the server, it’s also safely contained there… the client will never see that source code.

There is also a post over on aptana.com about Jaxer performance vs. PHP and Ruby on Rails… check it out!

Appreciate your comments, observations and praise. Feel free to shoot any more questions you may have at me, I’m always happy to help!

I think it is great to have CHOICES in how to dev any application. Allowing a Javascript programmer to essentially do most of what a back end PHP programmer can do, is perfectly fine.

However, I wonder how well Jaxer scales, in comparison to PHP.

With Jaxer, javascript replaces PHP, this also means more bandwidth usage, because now all the business logic (normally savely contained on the server) now has to be transmitted from the client(browser) to the Jaxer server. The PHP business logic is already on the server, and if you are using APC, PHP is very fast.

I sill believe that using PHP for backend business logic and Javascript for Browser DOM control is a more scalable and secure (tried and true, well tested) method of Web programming.

However, it is still interesting to see Javascript ‘extended’ to also run at the server, as well.

I use Aptana Eclipse plugins and without a doubt think Aptana is something unique and special. Keep up the good work!

Matt