The term Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) was coined by Jesse James Garrett in 2005. Since then, it has come to represent many different things, as the term encompasses a group of related capabilities and techniques. At its most basic level, an Ajax solution includes the following technologies:
- JavaScript: This is used to capture interactions with the user or other browser-related events and to interpret the data from the server and present it on the page
- XMLHttpRequest: This allows requests to be made to the server without interrupting other browser tasks
- Textual data: The server provides data in a format such as XML, HTML, or JSON
Ajax transforms static web pages into interactive web applications. Unsurprisingly, browsers are not entirely consistent with their implementations of the XMLHttpRequest object, but jQuery will assist us.
In this chapter, we will cover:
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