AJAX takes webapplications closer to desktop applications.

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KBleivik
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AJAX takes webapplications closer to desktop applications.

Post by KBleivik »

AJAX is an acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and often named empowered JavaScript. In a nutshell, AJAX is a mix of technologies that lets you get rid of the page reloads. AJAX is not new.

The heart of AJAX is the JavaScript XMLHttpRequest object invented by Microsoft in 1999. This object makes it possible to access the server in the background while the page is used normally as if it were a desktop application. No page refresh or reload is executed in order to retrieve data from the server and update the page with that data. AJAX gives a solution to balance the load between a client and and a server by allowing them to communicate in the background through the XMLHttpRequest object while the user is working on the page. The name AJAX dates back to 2005 when Jesse James Garrett published an article Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications. Microsoft has their own AJAX technology, Atlas. The Document Object Model (DOM) is an important related technology that lets you manipulate parts of the HTML page.

Because JavaScript is used when the client talks with the server, you have to fight with browser inconsistencies. AJAX-specific pages don't work on browsers without JavaScript, they can't easily be bookmarked and search engines don't always know to parse them. There are a lot of AJAX resources on the Internet, among them. You find some important links by the following browsing:
  1. Click on the link in my signature.
  2. Click on the MultiFinanceIT.
  3. Navigate to the IT + Site Page.
  4. Click on Links.
  5. Scroll down to the fallowing heading "Programming Tools" and sub heading "Ajax" or you may make a page search with the same key words.
You can use most of the popular scripting and programming languages on the server, like PHP, ASP, .NET languages and Java. Even C++ can be used. One of my favourites is C++Builder® 2007 that can be used to build interactive and responsive data-driven corporate Web applications that support AJAX techniques.


There are a lot of AJAX related books. Again, click on the link in my signature and then on DigitalStart.net. The Ad books on that page is not random and if you need more, choose books and write AJAX in the Amazon search box in the lower left corner. One of my favorites is "AJAX and PHP: Building Responsive Web Applications" Cristian Darie, Bogdan Brinzarea, Filip Chereches-Tosa and Mihai Bucica. Some links: More and more professional web sites use AJAX. Google Suggest was among the first. In that book you learn how to implement similar technologies on your own web page. A code archive follows with the book that may be downloaded. They use PHP as server language and MySQL as database platform, but any server language and SQL database platform may be used to create AJAX functionality.

Another favourite is: by Nicholas C. Zakas, Jeremy McPeak and Joe Fawcett "Professional AJAX". Nicholas C. Zakas has his own home page where you can also find a lot of useful code downloads and articles. I will especially draw your attention to the zXML library for cross-browser XML, XPath, and XSLT support.

Link: http://www.nczonline.net/downloads/

AJAX has revitalized JavaScript and made it a professional programming language with object oriented functionality. More and more JavaScript llibraries with AJAX functionality emerges. These libraries takes care of the fact that the XMLHttpRequest object is implemented differently in different browsers, so you do not care so much about one important AJAX principle, graceful degradation. A natural KW search is:

ajax javascript library

In addition to Nicholas C. Zakas zXML libray these are some of the best know JavaScript libraries that implement AJAX functionality.

http://jquery.com/

http://www.asp.net/ajax/downloads/

http://www.prototypejs.org/

http://dojotoolkit.org/

http://mootools.net/

http://www.aflax.org/

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/javascript-library

http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/

http://www.openrico.org/

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/spry/
Kjell Gunnar Bleivik
Make it simple, as simple as possible but no simpler: | DigitalPunkt.no |

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