Ajax (also known as AJAX), shorthand
for "Asynchronous JavaScript and XML," is a web development
technique for creating interactive web applications. The intent
is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts
of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire web
page does not have to be reloaded each time the user requests a
change. This is intended to increase the web page's interactivity,
speed, and usability.
SALIENT FEATURES
XHTML (or HTML) and CSS, for marking up and
styling information.
The DOM accessed with a client-side scripting
language, especially ECMAScript implementations such as JavaScript
and JScript, to dynamically display and interact with the information
presented.
The XMLHttpRequest object is used to exchange
data asynchronously with the web server. In some Ajax frameworks
and in certain situations, an IFrame object is used instead
of the XMLHttpRequest object to exchange data with the web
server, and in other implementations, dynamically added <script> tags
may be used.
XML is sometimes used as the format
for transferring data between the server and client, although
any format will work, including preformatted HTML, plain
text, JSON and even EBML. These files may be created dynamically
by some form of server-side scripting.
Application
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;
