Purpose of Bridging

Ok, I have the Atlas CTP, and I must say, this beats trying to just code AJAX straight up. I have gotten the hang of using the Atlas controls and can get them to do what I want on the pages I want them to perform. And if anyone on the Atlas team reads this, kudos to you guys for sharing this!

Now I have been reading somethings on Bridge files, and the .asbx extension and what not. I even read and followed thehttp://atlas.asp.net/docs/Walkthroughs/DevScenarios/bridge.aspx Mash-Up tutorial and got the application to compile and run. But still have yet to read something that says using a Bridge is good for (insert action here).

From looking at the example, it appears that it is a way to create classes that can be called from the javascript, and thus query webservices directly from the JavaScript. Is that correct, or did I miss interpret along the way?

Thanks!

I think you understand it exactly. Specifically, bridging is good when the webservice you want to call isn't on your server. Calling a webservice on another server is problematic given that modern browsers limit cross-site scripting for security reasons.

In this case, a common solution is to build a server-side proxy to make the call for you. Bridging automates much of the work involved in doing that. It also gives you an easy way to define data transformations on the results of that webservice call.

I hope that helps, and I'm glad to hear you enjoy the product!

Steve,
Thanks for the response. All of the webservices my site consumes are located on our servers and with in our domain. I guess I've never tried to consume something from another domain. Thanks for the help in the clarification, and for now, I think I'll leave bridging be, and focus more on how I can make the rest of Atlas work for me.

Thanks again!