AJAX The Future of Web Development Anders Moberg

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 AJAX Within AJAX HTML Provides static web content and style. No change. Client-side scripting Changes within a page with preloaded content. Changes within a page with content accessed from the server. XML Provides hierarchical data. No change. Server-side scripting Request 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?