On AJAX and Portlets (JSR168)...

SJSC2 Portlet creation demo
AJAX based portlets

These people miss a point. You don't need a portlet doView now!, and what if I want my GUI development to be independent of my server data? Why should GUI evolve only with the server logic? So, any web model where your server framework generates GUI, is OUT! Struts, JSP, JSF, Portlets...

OK now, the role of portlets is to only bundle functional logic, rather than the GUI. There, AJAX will allow total separation rather than GUI based separation in portlets. For example, we can create may URL 'get json data' like calls. This allows even no-server, no-GUI, based development testing.

AJAX being a old tested horse, I feel these new models are just scrambling to sell their skewed wares to be compliant with the buzzword and increase their millage before obsolescence.

Just thinking...