As everyone knows, technology is always changing and advancing at a rapid rate that makes it difficult to keep up with. The web is no exception to this as I found recently.
Last year I had a break from web programming to work in another field and in the meantime a technology called AJAX up and made itself popular. AJAX has proved so popular not because it provides anything new. In fact, AJAX is just a combination of several different technologies which have been around for a number of years. What makes AJAX so cool is what it allows you to do.
Traditionally, web pages have been completely static. Sure, the data displayed on them might be dynamically updated and stored in databases but, if you want to see any of those updates, you would have to completely reload the entire screen. I think this is one of the major drawbacks of web based software when compared to rich desktop software.
However, with AJAX that is no longer a problem. With AJAX, you can dynamically update just a single part of a screen without reloading the entire page. The possibilities of this are endless. You only have to look at applications like Googles GMail and Docs to see the kinds of things this concept allows.
Of course, just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should. There is a time and a place for AJAX and there is also a time and a place where it is not appropriate. As I begin to delve into this technology I am finding that that is a decision I am increasingly having to make.
Writing a web page using AJAX is much more complex than doing it in the traditional way so, when I am coding, I am increasingly having to ask myself, is it appropriate to use AJAX here or am I just doing it for the sake of it. It is important to find a balance between the time that would be required to do it the AJAX way and the benefit in usability that using AJAX would provide. Hopefully I get the balance right most of the time.
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