Introducing Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX

Gone are the days when a Web application could be architected and implemented as a collection
of related and linked pages. The advent of the so-called AJAX model is radically modifying
the user’s perception of a Web application, and it is subsequently forcing developers to apply
newer and richer models to the planning and implementation of modern Web applications.
But what is the AJAX model, anyway?
AJAX is a relatively new acronym that stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. It is a sort of
blanket term used to describe highly interactive and responsive Web applications. What’s the
point here? Weren’t Web applications created about a decade ago specifically to be “interactive,”
“responsive,” and deployed over a unique tool called the browser? So what’s new today?
The incredible success of the Internet has whetted people’s appetite for Web-related technology
beyond imagination. Over the years, the users’ demand for ever more powerful and Webexposed
applications and services led architects and developers to incorporate more and
more features into the server platform and client browser. As a result, the traditional pattern
of Web applications is becoming less adequate every day. A radical change in the design and
programming model cannot be further delayed.
At the current state of the art, the industry needs more than just an improved and more powerful
platform devised along the traditional guidelines and principles of Web applications—a
true paradigm shift is required. AJAX is the incarnation of a new paradigm for the next generation
of Web applications that is probably destined to last for at least the next decade.
From a more developer-oriented perspective, AJAX collectively refers to a set of development
components, tools, and techniques for creating highly interactive Web applications that give
users a better experience. According to the AJAX paradigm, Web applications work by
exchanging data rather than pages with the Web server. From a user perspective, this means
that faster roundtrips occur and, more importantly, page loading and refresh is significantly
reduced. As a result, a Web application tends to look like a classic desktop Microsoft Windows
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