AJAX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and is nothing new; it was previously known as "remote scripting." Microsoft's Remote Scripting (or MSRS) was introduced in 1998. The term 'Ajax' was coined on 2/18/2005 by Jesse James Garrett from Adaptive Path.
The use of AJAX allows the development of web applications that are highly interactive without the need to reload the whole page all the time as in traditional HTML (Web 1.0) web applications. With the help of AJAX are simply selected sections of a page modified and refreshed with new content from the web server via requests that are initiated by client side script code (JavaScript) that is executed in the background on the users machine without the user noticing much of it.
The format initially used for the transport of data in the upstream and downstream communication between the web server and the script code executed on the clients machine was XML at the beginning. With the evolvement of Web 2.0 applications did the type of requests and responses change to make the use of XML less favorable. XML is because of its descriptive nature creating much more code to wrap around the actual information than needed most of the time.
Formats like Json or proprietary formats developed for the different AJAX frameworks require less code and are more comon for the use of AJAX enabled web applications today. XML (respectively SOAP) based communication is largely limited to the use within companies intranet applications where bandwith and volume of overall data is not such a big problem.
Below are resources for web application developers to learn more about AJAX and AJAX frameworks to create content rich, multi-media enabled, interactive and user friendly websites and to aid in the development of them.
You might also want to check out the JavaScript and XML related resources here on this website. Additionally might also the resources to web services and APIs, including protocols such as SOAP and REST, of interest to you.
Professional Ajax (Programmer to Programmer) by Nicholas C. Zakas, Jeremy McPeak, and Joe Fawcett |
Ajax Patterns and Best Practices (Expert's Voice) by Christian Gross |
||
Ajax in Action by Dave Crane ,Eric Pascarello and Darren James |
Foundations of Ajax by Ryan Asleson , Nathaniel T. Schutta |
See the Advertiser Kit to learn more about sponsorship opportunities at Cumbrowski.com. Press? Download my Media Kit.