[clug-progsig] AJAX Intro

[Cory Syvenky]

Unfortunately, I've been neck deep in ASP.NET development lately. I  
know 3rd party developers in this environment are sure bleeding edge  
adopters. I remember strolling across some libraries to aid in  
AJAX .NET development and component developers like Infragisics  
offering their latest wares as AJAX-enabled.

I'm all for it, it seems like everybody is still very eager to make  
web applications function just like native desktop applications,  
slowly but surely we are finding work-arounds for the constrains of  
HTML/HTTP. I don't think that AJAX is as exciting as something like  
web services, but richer controls on the web have been needed for years.

As I understand all AJAX requires some type of HTTPXML parser. I  
think this happens in the browser, does that mean we are going to  
have 2-3 sets of browser specific code again? I have bad memories of  
writing cross-browser specific DHTML code.

cS

On 12-Nov-05, at 2:47 AM, Shawn wrote:

> The O'Reilly Newsletter made reference to a page with an  
> introduction to AJAX
> (Asynchronous JavaScript And Xml).  You can find the article here
> http://www.sitepoint.com/article/take-command-ajax.
>
> The short of it is that you can use JavaScript to request new  
> information from
> a server, and then modify your web page with this info, without  
> reloading
> your web pages.  The article takes you through a simple set up, to  
> a more
> advanced setup (though still relatively easy to understand).  It  
> covers
> getting plain text responses, as well as XML responses, and how to  
> filter
> through the XML to add content to your page.  This can be a very very
> powerful tool - Google Maps is a sample of AJAX in action.
>
> I've been using a system similar to this for years (and have  
> mentioned it on
> this list before).  I use a hidden IFRAME, and use JS to set the  
> src property
> of the IFRAME to a server side page. That server side page generates
> JavaScript code that then updates the parent window of the IFRAME.   
> AJAX
> removes the need for an IFRAME, and can make management of the code  
> a little
> simpler.
>
> Has anyone been working with AJAX and would like to share their
> thoughts/experiences or lessons learned?  For me, AJAX is still very
> academic.  I haven't yet had need to use it - all my apps are based  
> on the
> iframe approach - maybe the next app.
>
> Shawn