Shiny Clean Websites with Ajax.
There is lots of development energy being spent on two relatively unknown pieces of web technology: Ajax and Ruby on Rails.
Ajax is the name given by Adaptive Path's founder Jesse James Garrett to the combination of technologies used so effectively in recent web projects, particularly Google Maps, Gmail and Flickr. The list includes asynchronous javascript, CSS, XHTML, XMLHttpRequest and XML. Read his great overview for an introduction, then read Brent Ashley on the same subject.
Ruby on Rails is a technology that arose out of 37Signals and David Hansson's development of Basecamp.
The development team uses Ruby almost exclusively and built a new
framework to take web apps in Ruby to the next level. Visit the Ruby on Rails site for code, examples, and even a video walk-through.
And as you might have guessed, the two have been combined! Read Ajaxing the Rails. [Leave It Behind > Brian Bailey]