CHAPTER 8Ajax

Ajax is a technology that has taken the Web by storm and has prompted the Web 2.0 revolution. The technology was originally developed by Microsoft to power a web-based version of its Outlook e-mail software. Microsoft implemented Ajax as an ActiveX control that could be used by its browser, Internet Explorer, and be called from JavaScript to perform asynchronous browser requests.

The advantage of the approach is that the browser doesn't have to refresh the entire page to interact with the server, thus allowing the development of applications that bear a closer resemblance to their desktop counterparts. Since then, browsers other than Internet Explorer have standardized on a native JavaScript object called XMLHttpRequest that has ...

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