Up till now we just had AJAX around but now we have what we call is ARAX. Asynchronous Ruby and XML or ARAX is dependant on Ruby on Rails and it bypasses JavaScript in the process. This is totally a new web development technique and in no way it should be confused with AJAX.

You would be surprised to know that none other than Microsoft is backing ARAX and the man behind it is John Lam. It started off as web development application support for Silverlight and it's still not sure whether Microsoft would maintain its exclusivity for Silverlight or not but from Microsoft's past experience it looks that the company always loves to be part of the rat race.

If you talk about Ruby then its syntax can catch hold of information more safely and in a quick manner too. When compared to Javascript it's a bit heavier but it can be run in client side and IronRuby has taken care of this problem by putting to use CSS and HTML which interact with the server.

Though ARAX looks good on paper but there is still a long distance to be traveled before we can say whether ARAX will be able to give AJAX a fight or not.