史蒂文 :: Release 2.0

A good Ajax platform will provide a rich GUI, client side caching, etc.
 

(Steven, I'm not sure if you're being facetious, but my answer assumes that you're not and you're really asking for an explanation of Ajax.)

Without knowing what the application you left is, it's hard to say whether you understand Ajax sufficiently. (In 1999, there weren't many browsers that could do what we now know as Ajax.)

Have you used Flickr? The way that you can edit captions and tags on a photo is Ajax. Likewise, the scrolling of a map in Google Maps uses Ajax, the addition of comments in Basecamp uses Ajax, and the autocompletion in Google Suggest uses Ajax.

The thing that's common among all these apps is that they allow updating of the currently-displayed web page without refreshing the entire web page. So in Flickr, you can view a photo you've uploaded, click on the caption, and edit it right there in the page; clicking submit finalizes the caption without refreshing the page. In Google Maps, you can scroll around the map to your heart's content, and as you scroll outside the currently-viewed boundaries, the web page makes quick requests to get the portions of the map you're looking for, and displays them again without refreshing the entire web page. It's a much "lighter" conversation, which leads to a much more responsive browsing experience (similar to a real desktop application).

You're right to think about XML-RPC, except that it corresponds only to one component of Ajax, the component that makes a request to the server and receives an encoded response. The three components that don't exist in that model are the in-browser object that allows for the request (and handles receiving and decoding the response), the parsed tree (the Document Object Model) that allows for parsing the currently-viewed web page, and the programming language (JavaScript) that allows for modification of that parsed tree.

Again, if you're being facetious, I apologize; I'm answering you like I would have appreciated being answered when I didn't get Ajax. It took me a few "Aha!" moments to finally get it, and now it makes sense to me.
 

Hi Jason - no you were right on instinct - i was genuinly asked about it! Being facetious is too much of a pain in the ass :)

I do have to disagree somewhat. I guess the main point is that *other browsers* are now starting to support this method. In '99 you could do such thing via Remote Scripting, Xml, RDS on the client and so on. In fact doing exactly what Google does now wouldn't have been tricky.

I worked on a number of applications using Ajax like techniques and we used a behind the scenes Xml DOM instance to maintain client state and give them a rich experience on the client, all the while integrating hueg sources of local and remote data into the application.

I guess i'm just missing why it is such a big thing. In no facetious way - it's just that I remember this kind of stuff being around. I'd love to show you the app (it's public), but it's also secure.

Thanks for the detailed post though - helps me get where people are at a lot more :)
 

I had a lot to say, so discuss this here :

link
 

i think the simple anser is you are completly correct. The way i see it though is that if "AJAX" becomes popular (or well because it has) we will get more development tools and platforms to do this stuff in. Microsoft is creating a javascript editor mostly because of Ajax. Google is pushing ahead with this stuff - so yeah its definitly not new but people are just waking up and understanding the stuff they can do.

Ahh remote scripting - now that was fun to debug!
 

Yeah - spent many a late nigth at the office with Remote Scripting. In fact i was working with it only a month ago (putting in an XmlHttp, or Ajax, replacement module).

OK, so i get Ajax more now. Thanks guys!