Ajax and its Fundamentals in a Nutshell

Introduction to Ajax

Ajax refers to the combination of technologies which altogether performs the asynchronous JavaScript and XML functions simultaneously. If you are going for an Ajax interview, you must see Ajax Interview Questions for more insights. Ajax can be termed as the formulation of various technologies which form the part of the whole language such as:

·       HTML and CSS which is used for styling and marking purposes.

·  Use of XMLHttpRequest (XMR), IFrame object or dynamic addition of tags to handle the asynchronous conversation between the server and the browser, in order to avoid repeated page reloading.

·         JavaScript DOM in order to interact and display the data on the server.

·         Dynamically created format for sending the data over browser in the form of plain text, XML, JSON (JavaScript Object Notation), or pre-formatted HTML.

Working of Ajax

For instance, the following diagram depicts how the conversation is handled with Ajax:

As depicted in the above diagram, whenever Ajax sends an HTML page to the server, the updated HTML is executed and returned to the browser without the need to reload the page. This demonstrated the major function of Ajax which is, to send and retrieve the data from the server in an asynchronous manner, without causing any interruption to the ongoing process.

Ajax: Advantages and Disadvantages

There are various pros and cons associated with Ajax programming, let us review some of them as below:

Advantages of Ajax

·         The traffic between the server and the client is reduced, ultimately leading to faster processes and page loading time.

·         The speed and performance of the website are enhanced, due to higher response time.

·         The HTTP protocol is used to handle the communication, which means the access of GET, POST, PUT, HEAD and DELETE request is also attained.

·         Due to the use of JSON instead of XML, parsing gets much more convenient.

Disadvantages of Ajax

·         As the files are being downloaded to the client-side, AJAX can be less secure.

·         As the browsers are not able to index the JSON pages, it can affect the SEO of your website.

·         The design and development time of your website can be unnecessarily increased.

·         For AJAX, you need to have JavaScript enabled browser, or else your application won’t work.

Ajax in a Nutshell

In case, you want to learn more about how Ajax works for webpages, you can visit the Top 30 Ajax Interview Questions. In a nutshell, we can say:

·         AJAX refers to the Asynchronous JavaScript and XML.

·         The data can be sent to and received in the background, without the need to reload the page.

·         AJAX uses HTTP protocol for communication purpose.

·         It helps to reduce the loading time and enhance the response time for the webpage.