Ajax Creating Web Pages With Asynchronous Javascript And Xml

Preface Preface The purpose of the book that you hold in your hands,Ajax: Creating Web Pages with Asynchronous JavaScript and XML,is simply to show you the fundamentals of developing Ajax applications. What This Book Is About For the last several years, there has been a quiet revolution taking place in web application development. In fact, it was so quiet that until February 2005, this revolution didn't have a name, even among the revolutionaries themselves. Actually, beyond the odd mention of phrases such as XMLHttpRequest object,XML,orSOAP,developers didn't really talk about it much at all, probably out of some fear of being burned for meddling in unnatural forces. But now that the cat is out of the bag, there is no reason not to show how Ajax works. Because I am a member of the "we learn by doing" cult (no Kool Aid required), you'll find more code examples than you can shake a stick at. So this is the book for those people who enjoyed the labs more than the lectures. Ifenjoyedis the wrong word, feel free to substitute the words "learned more from." Until around 2005, the "we learn by doing" group of developers was obscured by the belief that a piece of paper called a certification meant more than hands-on knowledge. I suppose that, in a way, it did. Unfortunately, when jobs became fewer and farther between, developers began to collect certifications the way that Imelda Marcos collected shoes. Encyclopedic knowledge might have helped in getting interviews and subsequent jobs, but it really didn't help very much in keeping those jobs. However, now that the pendulum has begun to swing in the other direction, it is starting to become more important to actually know a subject than to be certified in it. This leads to the question of "Why learn Ajax?" The answer to that question can be either short and sweet or as rich and varied as the concept of Ajax itself. Let's start with the first answer because it looks good on the resumeacute;. We all know that when something looks good on the resumeacute;, it helps to keep us in the manner in which we have become accustomed, living indoors and eating regularly. Couple this with the knowledge of actually having hands-on knowledge, and the odds of keeping the job are greatly increased. The rich and varied answer is that, to parrot half of the people writing about web development trends, Ajax is the wave of the future. Of course, this leads to the statement, "I heard the same thing about DHTML, and nobody has talked about that for five years." Yes, some of the same things were said about DHTML, but this time it is different. The difference is that, this time, the technology has evolved naturally instead of being sprung upon the world just so developers could play buzzword bingo with their resumeacute;s. This time, there are actual working examples beyond the pixie dust following our mouse pointers around. This time, the companies using these techniques are real companies, with histories extending beyond last Thursday. This time, things are done with a reason beyond the "it's cool" factor. What You Need to Know Before Reading This Book This book assumes a basic understanding of web-development techniques beyond the WYSIWYG drag and drop that is the current standard. It isn't necessary to have hand-coded HTML; it is only necessary to know that HTML exists. This book will hopefully fill in the gaps so that the basics of what goes where can be performed. Beyond my disdain for the drag-and-drop method of web development, there is a logical reason for the need to know something about HTML--basically, we're going to be modifying the HTML document after it is loaded in the browser. Nothing really outrageous willWoychowsky, Edmond is the author of 'Ajax Creating Web Pages With Asynchronous Javascript And Xml', published 2006 under ISBN 9780132272674 and ISBN 0132272679.