Ajax: Creating Web Pages with Asynchronous JavaScript and XML

Chapter 2. Introducing Ajax A little more than a year ago, an article by Jesse James Garrett was published describing an advanced web development technique that, even though individual components of it have existed for years, few web develop...

2.1. Not a Mockup A few years ago, I demonstrated an application that did what I just described. The demo ran for more than 2 hours with the same questions repeated over and over. "It's a mockup, right?" "No, it is the actual ...

2.2. A Technique Without a Name Now, if I had been smart, I would have given the technology a name then and there, and thus ensured my place in Web history, shutting up the client as well. After all, a name is a thing of power, and the client, not...

2.3. What Is Ajax? As stated previously, Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript And XML, but what exactly does that mean? Is the developer limited to only those technologies named? Thankfully, no, the acronym merely serves as a guideline and not ...

2.4. An Ajax Encounter of the First Kind Now that I've gushed about the why of this technique, let me offer a little insight on the how of this technique. Let's start with the three HTML documents shown in Listing 2-1, Listing 2-2, and Listing 2-3...

2.5. An Ajax Encounter of the Second Kind As flexible and cross-browser capable as the "hidden frames" method of implementing Ajax is, all that has been accomplished is the "AJ" part of Ajax. Which is sort of like the sound of ...

2.6. An Ajax Encounter of the Third Kind The fifth part of Ajax, an optional part, isn't for the faint of heart. It transcends the "mad scientist stuff" into the realm of the magical, and it is called eXtensible Stylesheet Language for T...

2.7. The Shape of Things to Come The sole purpose of this chapter is to offer a glimpse of the shape of things to come, both in this book and in the industry. All joking aside, this glimpse wasn't the result of mad science or any other dark art....

2.8. Summary This chapter started with a brief introduction to Ajax that included some of the origins and problems associated with using "mad scientist stuff," such as the accusations of attempting to pass off a mock-up as an actual appl...