Whenever a new acronym is invented, I cringe at the thought of having to learn a new technology to keep up with the Jones’. Yesterday I built up the courage to have a look at AJAX to see what the hype is all about.
Expecting the worst, I had to laugh when I realised that this new “technology” is based on just one single javascript function(with a bit of xml thrown in).
The idea behind AJAX is to be able to do a server request and get back some data without actually reloading your page. The Google Suggestion tool is a prime example of AJAX in action.
Here is a cool intro to AJAX(remove the x):
xhttp://www.webpasties.com/xmlHttpRequest/