Got Web Ideas? Fishing for the Answers?
Think Outside The Code First!
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Facts, Thoughts, and Opinions About Web Development and Business Strategy
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As those with futuristic vision fast forward us down the path of Web 2.0, many are bringing along
a new (but not new) development strategy named AJAX. Some are coining AJAX as the next best Web
development tool. I am calling it more of a mop-up tool for enhancing functionality where certain
Website features may run slow or high levels of seamless interactivity are desired. Yet, many are building
full-scale Websites with it. Many of those people will likely wish they hadn't.
We are going to take a good long look at AJAX, it's power, and it's drawbacks in the following article.
AJAX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. What that basically means is that a Web page in
a client's browser can interact with the server without the page refreshing through the use of
XML and JavaScript calls. When using AJAX functionality on a Web page, you will not see the screen
flicker when you make server calls (i.e. submit forms, change drop down menus, etc.). That is good
news and bad news from an end-user perspective and we will dive in to later.
AJAX, much like the term Web 2.0, is toted as being a new technology.
Yet, just like Web 2.0, it is not a technology by itself nor is it new. AJAX has actually been around a
few years and the technologies that propel it have been around for a very long time. AJAX has gained
in popularity in recent times as the popularity of Web 2.0 becomes a somewhat foggy staple of the next
generation of Web development. AJAX offers a different way of client/server interaction that mimics
that of a desktop environment. For that reason, people have clung on to it as being a major part of the
next generation of Website development. I'm not going there but it will be prominent in certain areas
of development.
Any time a new Web development technology is released, it must have a profound benefit to the end user. AJAX does
have benefits to end users but those benefits only apply to certain situations where lumps of data are very big
or on pages that have a high level of sliced functionality. To use it on simpler pages just to avoid a screen
flicker would be nothing more than using AJAX just because you can.
Lets take a look at some AJAX examples, see it's power, and look at some disadvantages of it as well.
- Part II: Examples of Where AJAX is Beneficial
- Part III: Disadvantages of AJAX
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