AJAX – The Future of Web Development? Anders Moberg David Mörtsell David Södermark

This Lecture Introduction AJAX Examples Discussion Results Questions

Introduction AJAX –Asynchronous Javascript And XML –Partial page updates Web 2.0 –Next generation of the Web –Every reader is a writer Traditional web development –Request entire web pages

AJAX Technologies –HTML, CSS –Client-side scripting Javascript, VBScript –XML –Server-side scripting PHP, ASP, JSP

HTML Hypertext Markup Language Static CSS used for style XHTML

Client-side scripting Small scripts on web pages Dynamic Inside HTML

XML Extensible Markup Language Describes data XHTML

Server-side scripting Executed on the server Commonly used to access databases –Content more dynamic and personalised Output usually HTML, sent to the client

Summary Without AJAXWithin AJAX HTMLProvides static web content and style. No change. Client-side scriptingChanges within a page with preloaded content. Changes within a page with content accessed from the server. XMLProvides hierarchical data. No change. Server-side scriptingRequest dynamic content that describes a complete web page. Request dynamic content that can describe specific parts of a web page.

Examples Answers.com AJAX Translator

Discussion Should developers learn AJAX? Benefits –Less bandwidth = faster loading –Faster loading = faster feedback –More interactive web pages Problems –The back-button problem –Can be difficult to know what is changed

Conclusion Learn AJAX! It may be the future...

Questions?