[...]... the patterns and focus on reading the “Motivation” and “Architecture” sections And if after that you are still interested, please buy this book because the remaining sections fill in the details of what the patterns are trying to achieve If you would like to experiment with the patterns, I suggest you surf to the site http://www.devspace.com/ ajaxpatterns, which will either have the live patterns or... will you survive? Sometimes you will, and sometimes you won’t! Drinking without questioning is playing Russian roulette The same can be said of writing Ajax that ignores REST, ignores XML, ignores JSON, and ignores JavaScript Ajax is Ajax because of these new technologies that can be combined in new and interesting ways My vision of Ajax goes beyond the technologies and represents a new way of building... ability to figure out what you did and why you did it Book and Pattern Road Map The book is pattern based, with the exception of Chapters 1 and 2 Following is the road map for those first two chapters: • Chapter 1: This chapter is used as an introduction to the book and the topic of Ajax The focus of the chapter is to provide the context of Ajax and to compare an Ajax application to other methodologies... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /AJAX 2 http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html 1 Gross_6161C01.fm Page 2 Tuesday, January 10, 2006 2:41 PM 2 CHAPTER 1 ■ INTRODUCTION TO AJAX Pictures Are Worth a Thousand Words The definition explains Ajax, but you are probably still wondering what Ajax does There is a saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, and the following images and their... editing, debugging, and testing applications Komodo offers advanced support for Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Tcl, and runs on Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and Windows xvii Gross_6161Front.fm Page xviii Thursday, January 26, 2006 11:54 AM Gross_6161Front.fm Page xix Thursday, January 26, 2006 11:54 AM Introduction Y ou probably picked up this book because of the buzzwords Ajax, REST, and patterns You will... writing Ajax applications, the XMLHttpRequest object is a core technology used to communicate with an HTTP server Best practices when using the XMLHttpRequest object are also illustrated Chapter 3 and thereafter present patterns A hierarchy of the patterns is illustrated in Figure 1 Gross_6161Front.fm Page xxi Thursday, January 26, 2006 11:54 AM ■I N T R O D U C T I O N Figure 1 Hierarchy of patterns. .. (Flash Ajax) For example, the Permutations pattern can be used to generate Flex content Good, you’re still reading and haven’t closed the book That means you are still interested and probably willing to spend a few more moments Here is what I suggest: finish reading the Introduction because it includes a road map of the patterns Skim Chapter 1 to get an idea of what Ajax does and is Then skim the patterns. .. words, and the following images and their associated explanations illustrate best what Ajax does Map.search.ch was one of the first major Ajax applications, and it illustrates the elegance of what an Ajax application can be In a nutshell, Map.search.ch is used to find restaurants, houses, parking spots, and more throughout Switzerland When you surf to the website http://map.search.ch, you will see something... REST is used solely for the transfer of data, and in particular is used extensively with Ajax applications The overall idea is to generate content and to have that content filtered and processed The filtered and processed content serves as an information basis, where another process acts as a client that filters and processes the information The filtered and processed information acts as an information... presentation Ajax applications operate from the client side and download data streams that can be manipulated or executed Many will believe that this means people are ready to use the thin client and to always use applications from the network However, Ajax does not mean the network is the computer In fact, going back to the original Ajax fundamental concept, it means that a user uses Ajax and REST to . class="bi x0 y0 w0 h0" alt="" Ajax Patterns and Best Practices ■■■ Christian Gross Gross_6161Front.fm Page i Thursday, January 26, 2006 11:54 AM Ajax Patterns and Best Practices Copyright © 2006. road map of the patterns. Skim Chapter 1 to get an idea of what Ajax does and is. Then skim the patterns and focus on reading the “Motivation” and “Architecture” sections. And if after that. introduction and then decide whether you want to buy the book. Here are the things you need to know about Ajax: • Ajax is an acronym, and the ramifications of the acronym are immense. • Ajax is not