Presenting A New Acronym for Failure...

This contractor that I've mentioned before in passing, is really good at doing things the most absurdly ridiculous way possible. If there's an easy and a hard way to do something, he'll invent a new way that does both, backwards.

By now, everyone's familiar with AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML), and if you're not, this blog may not be for you.

The application that was delivered to my company had a very peculiar feature. If you're familiar with .NET's AJAX 2.0 framework, then you're probably familiar with the Tab control. It's a very simple AJAX control, nothing fancy. Now, if you're also familiar with the ASP.NET webform's model of postbacks for controls to maintain viewstate, then you're familiar with all of the ingredients to the recipe here. 

A rational, sane man, might develop a webpage using an AJAX Tab control. A rational, sane man, might develop another page using a series of tabs that take postbacks and pass some information along in viewstate. Our developmestruction hero took the road less travelled, and picked both.

That's right. He's using the AJAX Tab control, except, when you swap tabs, about half a second to a second after the tab swaps, the whole page posts back, and you end up on a different .aspx page. My co-worker Robert and I couldn't believe it. I sat there, stupefied at what was before me. I announced that this man had created Asynchronous Synchronous Javascript and XML.

To which, Robert turned to me and loudly proclaimed:

ASSJAX! 

(ASynchronous Synchronous Javascript and Xml). 

There's no escaping it. This term has become standard use in our office now. So thank you, anonymous contractor. You may have developed an indecipherable, bug ridden, amateur, spaghetti code system of evil that we'll have to maintain for God knows how long; but at least you gave us the greatest gift of all. ASSJAX.