ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 client side databinding

Question

I read some articles in MSDN magazine about new features in ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 - primarily client side data binding. I feel MSDN magazine sometimes contains a lot of "marketing" so I'm interested in opinions of real developers. Does it worth it? Do you plan to use it?

Edit:

Here are links for articles if anybody is interested. But at the moment it looks like dying framework for enthusiasts only.

• Data binding in ASP.NET AJAX 4.0
• Conditional rendering in ASP.NET AJAX 4.0
• Live databinding in ASP.NET AJAX 4.0
• Master-detail view with ASP.NET AJAX Library

Answer 1

Well Microsoft started to favor jQuery over Microsoft Ajax themselves something like half a year ago. Though the new stuff looked great, and I've played with them, I like to use jQuery in combination with jqGrid myself instead. Besides that there are a lot of plugins available for jQuery as well and I consider that an added bonus.

What I do like, and still use, is the ASP.NET Ajax control toolkit. Especially the calendar control in that suite looks cool and most of my clients like me to build it in.

Answer 2

From Microsoft, jQuery, and Templating:

The ASP.NET Ajax Library
We are moving the ASP.NET Ajax Library into the Ajax Control Toolkit.

If you currently use ASP.NET Ajax Library client templates, client data-binding, or the client script loader then you can continue to use these features by downloading the Ajax Control Toolkit.

Be aware that our focus with the Ajax Control Toolkit is server-side

Ajax. For client-side Ajax, we are shifting our focus to jQuery. For example, if you have been using ASP.NET Ajax Library client templates then we recommend that you shift to using jQuery instead.

Conclusion
Our plan is to focus on jQuery as the primary technology for building

client-side Ajax applications moving forward. We want to adapt Microsoft technologies to work great with jQuery and we want to contribute features to jQuery that will make the web better for everyone. We are very excited to be working with the jQuery core team

Once I read this, I stopped thinking using the Microsoft AJAX databinding which was a bit complicated and started using JQuery and it's JavaScript Micro-Templating. I did really like the idea of two way databinding that the Microsoft AJAX library had though.