Creating Server Admin Tools in AJAX
I have to say that while it's been tedious to do some of the servlet functions for the server administration, it was amazingly easy to do the communication and GUI. I mean this is really the strength of the "Web 2.0" (AJAX/CSS) way of doing things. Had I known of this back in my last job, I'd have never built the monolithic old-style web app that we built. Everything was a call to the server and a new page. The calls could have been so much more lightweight and the interactivity so much better.
Even the Java applets could have been nicer as they could have done similar things to get the data from servlets and update themselves automatically. Simple.
But, in fairness, that project was started at least three years ago, and while the technology existed, there wasn't the level of support and understanding there is today. Well... at least that's the story I'm going with.
It is nice to be able to whip something up quickly and have it work very nicely.