This just in—MS Ajax 1.0 Final has been released! Download it here or see Scott Guthrie’s blog post for full details. Note that ajax.asp.net is down at the time of this writing, so Scott’s download link might not work. Presumably the assembly it will be hitting your shared web host shortly.

Probably the coolest part of this release is that they also will be releasing the server-side source code. This has several significant implications:

1. Ever wonder how they made the UpdatePanel? Well, now you can see how without resorting to reflector. Want to see how MS codes a flagship product’s web controls? Well, now you can.
2. You can compile your own non-GAC version for use with your own project. I suspect this will still require full trust, but it still makes for much more self-contained deployments, which I love.

The release of the source also leads me to ask an interesting question: why not release the sources for the rest of the ASP.NET stack? I would love to be able to walk through the page lifecycle or watch my IHttpModule work in the debugger. I think that will do a lot to help ASP.NET developers get a handle on what actually happens in the rather complex series of events summarized as “Page Lifecycle.”

Written By:

Wyatt Barnett

Wyatt leads the in-house development team for a major industry trade association. When not slinging obscene amounts of C# and SQL at a few exceedingly large monitors, he is most often spotted staring at HDTV and other forms of entertainment in local watering holes.