History of AJAX

2005 will definitely be remembered as the rise of AJAX – the new development technique that many believe will blur the line between web-based and desktop applications. This mystical acronym, authored by Adaptive Path in mid February, is a label for the rich, highly responsive and interactive interfaces of AJAX-enabled applications. It stands for “Asynchronous JavaScript + XML”.

Although we are just beginning to realize its full potential, the proven success of famous AJAX-based projects like Google Maps signifies that this is not just another media hype, but rather a promising technology that may change web-applications as we know them.

The purpose of this article is to help developers understand the core concept of AJAX, realize its benefits and suitable application scenarios, and of course, become aware of its drawbacks. You will learn about some of the most important AJAX implementations as well as about some of the leading development tools and components, which can help you jump-start your AJAX-enabled applications.

This document is aimed at ASP.NET developers, although anyone with a good knowledge of how the Internet works will gain a solid understanding of AJAX and its benefits.