What is AJAX?
Jun/090
AJAX definitions from around the web.
Short for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, it is a term that describes a new approach to using a number of existing technologies together, including the following: HTML or XHTML, Cascading Style Sheets, JavaScript, the Document Object Model, XML, XSLT, and the XMLHttpRequest object. When these technologies are combined in the Ajax model, Web applications are able to make quick, incremental updates to the user interface without reloading the entire browser page.
(Asynchronous JAvaScript and XML) Using an enhancement in JavaScript that allows Web pages to be more interactive and behave like local applications, which are also known as “rich client” applications. AJAX allows the Web page to retrieve small amounts of data from the server without reloading the entire page. More here>>
Ajax is the catchy term coined by Jesse James Garrett in his 2005 article for “Adaptive Path” called “Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications,” which can still be found at http://adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php. You should read this article if you haven’t already! Ajax is also an acronym, but for the same reasons, let’s defer explaining just what it stands for right now. Ajax didn’t exist before this article, but the features the article described certainly did.
In short, Ajax is a set of programming techniques or a particular approach to Web programming. These programming techniques involve being able to seamlessly update a Web page or a section of a Web application with input from the server, but without the need for an immediate page refresh. This doesn’t mean that the browser doesn’t make a connection to the Web server. Indeed, the original article paints a slightly incomplete picture in that it fails to mention that server-side technologies are often still needed. It is very likely that your page, or data from which the page is drawn, must still be updated at some point by a rendezvous with the server. What differs in the Ajax model is that the position at which the page is updated is moved. We’ll look at the two models in more detail shortly. More here>>