Brent Ashley "cuts through the crap" and talks about Ajax and remote scripting.
AJAX is an acronym for Asynchronous Javascript + XML. Ok, now that I've told you that, forget you ever heard it. Ajax (proper case) has already come to represent a wider concept. The concept is this: Load up and render a webpage, then remain at that page while scripted routines make background trips to the server for data that is used to update the page in place by re-rendering and or hiding/unhiding portions of the page. Now that we've got that settled, let's break the concept down into some functional parts to see where the convoluted discussion's apples and oranges lie:
- Presentation
- Invocation
- Message Encoding
- Transport
From brentashley: Ajax forest, Remote Scripting trees
Referenced Tue Mar 29 2005 08:35:49 GMT-0700 (MST)
As Brent points out, we're not really talking about concepts or technology that hasn't been available since 1998 or so. However, as with many things, it took some example to help us break out of the trap of thinking that a Web page always had to refresh completely.
This has really started to resonate with me lately. I've been reviewing some product for InfoWorld that have Web interfaces and they seem very clunky now whereas 6 months ago I accepted them as a fait accompli. I'm expecting more from Web applications now (and that will be reflected in my reviews). I think a few years from now, most Web applications will use dynamic rendering techniques as embodied in Ajax. For that to happen, however, we need better toolsets.
