Web Development

Ajax

Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript And XML. Ajax is a type of programming made popular in 2005 by Google (with Google Suggest). It is not a new programming language, but a new way to use existing standards and creating interactive web applications. With Ajax you can create better, faster, and more user-friendly web applications. This technique is based on JavaScript and HTTP requests. With Ajax, your JavaScript can communicate directly with the server, using the JavaScript XML httpRequest object. With this object, your JavaScript can trade data with a web server, without reloading the page. Ajax uses asynchronous data transfer (HTTP requests) between the browser and the web server, allowing web pages to request small bits of information from the server instead of whole pages. This is intended to increase the web page's interactivity, speed and usability.

What is AJAX?

The name is shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript + XML, and it represents a fundamental shift in what's possible on the Web. Ajax isn't a technology. It's really several technologies, each flourishing in its own right, coming together in powerful new ways. Ajax incorporates:

1. standards-based presentation using XHTML and CSS;
2. dynamic display and interaction using the Document Object Model;
3. data interchange and manipulation using XML and XSLT;
4. asynchronous data retrieval using XMLHttpRequest;
5. and JavaScript binding everything together;

Who's Using Ajax

Google is making a huge investment in developing the Ajax approach. All of the major products Google has introduced over the last year - Orkut, Gmail, the latest beta version of Google Groups, Google Suggest, and Google Maps - are Ajax applications. Others are following suit: many of the features that people love in ListSomething.com depend on Ajax, and Amazon's A9.com search engine applies similar techniques.
These projects demonstrate that Ajax is not only technically sound, but also practical for real-world applications. This isn't another technology that only works in a laboratory. And Ajax applications can be any size, from the very simple, single-function AJAX Keyword Suggest to the very complex and sophisticated Google Maps.