One of the latest developments in web design is AJAX. It’s been a popular discussion point in forums and news groups for some time now. But what are Ajax fundamentals and how can they benefit you?

AJAX is short for Asynchronous Javascript and XML. Its web design method for creating interactive web applications. Let me explain further.

In a standard web page (HTML) you might enter some information into a form. Lets say your looking for the phone number of someone you know. Perhaps you enter their last name, first name and city. Then you click “search” and a page is returned with a list of people who fit your description. In this example you receive a web page, send some information and get another web page back.

If the same example was coded with AJAX, as you are entering the details, the website could be presenting a series of possible matches. No need to necessarily complete the information and no need to click the search button and wait for the returned web page.

As you can appreciate AJAX has the potential to make your WebPages much more interactive by allowing “on the fly” information transfer, including database enquiries to be completed in real time.

The term AJAX was coined just recently. According to Wikipedia the first public use of the term was by Jesse James Garrett in his February 2005 article Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications

It’s important to note that AJAX is not a technology in itself – just a group of technologies used in a particular way.

While the term “AJAX” is a recent development, most of the technologies which make it up, start a decade earlier in work by Microsoft to develope Remote Scripting.

Here are some examples of the technology in action: Clearnova, About.com Ajax example page and the Instant Domain Search page. There are many Ajax examples in these pages.

If you need more in-depth information see these AJAX tutorial sites: W3Schools and Telerik.com. Sitepoint also has a useful Ajax tutorial.

There are Ajax community forums available too. See AjaxTalk.com and AjaxToday.com.