Not Everything is AJAX
AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) as been around now long enough that people should be able to recognize when some is and isn't AJAX. In fact, a lot of AJAX isn't even AJAX! A lot of the time it's AJAH (... HTML) and AJAJ (... JSON (Javascript Object Notation)) but that's just me being critical.
So what is AJAX anyway? AJAX is when one uses a great little Javascript object called XMLHttpRequest (this now exists in IE7) to connect to the server behind the scenes to get some sort of information. That's it. Technically speaking, everything following (formatting, sexy effects, etc) just IS NOT AJAX. That stuff fits nicely into the ambiguous Web 2.0 label.
So what's Web 2.0? Oh jeez. Go look Google it, the top four results are enlightening. So to finish off this rant, not everything is AJAX. Most of the time, things are plain and sexy DHTML (Dynamic HTML).
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Spot on about Ajax. Woowoo, let's DHTML like it's 1999! Frankly, it's embarassing. Is it just me or have things quickly gone from an effort of trying to use javascript (including ajax) only when it degrades gracefully to having tons of sites that completely won't function without js enabled with no warning whatsoever made by developers that should know better? One rather high-profile site I browsed to the other day had its layout completely broken with javascript disabled. No message to alert people that it was needed and what's worse is that I could find absolutely no way for anything on the page to even benefit from let alone require javascript. Oh, and to put it simply, "Web 2.0" is just spin that in reality translates to, "next generation web-marketing." User-centric, semantic web, blah blah blah... it's all a big sham pumped up by pundits that stand to gain from people believing and buying into the non-sense. I believe I out-ranted you. ;)posted by Jason on Jan 31, 2007 at 2:12pm
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You're right, graceful degredation is a must. I think my main pet peeve is that AJAX is such a simple thing to implement and there are too many people doing it in stupid ways. In fact, a lot of the time it is used for the sake of having it.posted by Peter Goodman on Feb 1, 2007 at 12:25am
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Didn't ie 5.x introduce xmlhttprequest?posted by Rosewater on Feb 4, 2007 at 12:24am
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The IE team did create the XMLHTTP ActiveX control; however, what I was talking about was the actual XMLHttpRequest object, which most other browsers support. IE7 now has it, even though it still links to activex.posted by Peter Goodman on Feb 4, 2007 at 9:01pm
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