As your quest to combat technological jargon continues, you will come across the term AJAX. In technological terms, AJAX has nothing to do with overly muscular cleaning products or Trojan War veterans (which is probably obvious), but what does it refer to? Is it a programming language? A software platform? A web application? The answer is actually nothing of the above.
What is AJAX?
AJAX is an acronym that stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, and describes a set of development techniques used to build websites and web applications. According to Web developer and Win Infoway WordPress instructor Ann Cascarano, the best way to understand AJAX is to begin by identifying its specific objective in the process of Web development. The main function of AJAX is to update web content asynchronously (the “A” of AJAX), which means that a user’s web browser does not need to reload an entire web page when only a small part of the page content should be changed.
One of the most ubiquitous examples of asynchronous updating is Google’s “Google Suggest” feature. When you type a search query into the Google search bar and the Google website automatically begins to offer autocomplete options as you type, it’s AJAX in action. The page content changes (in this case, the autocomplete options in the search bar) without having to manually refresh the page (which would make Google Suggest inconvenient to use). Features like Google Suggest are a fundamental part of contemporary web browsing, which shows how essential AJAX is in web development. In addition to Google Suggest, Cascarano says that AJAX is commonly used to update features such as status and notification bars, online forms, comment sections, and surveys and polls. But what exactly are AJAX’s “J” and “X” and how do they make asynchronous updating possible?
JavaScript and XML
As mentioned above, the “J” in AJAX stands for JavaScript. JavaScript is a type of scripting language: the coding languages used to automate website processes so that web developers do not have to program each instance of the process that appears on a page individually. In the case of JavaScript, it is used specifically to create, add, and manage dynamic website content. In other words, after markup languages like HTML and CSS are used to create and display static web functionality (headers, fonts, paragraphs, etc.), JavaScript is then used to control functionality that requires updated in real time while a visitor is viewing a page (think of interactive maps, animated graphics, moving videos, jukeboxes, etc.). Since JavaScript is about updating page content without requiring viewers to reload entire pages manually, this is an essential component for asynchronous updating of AJAX.
The “X” in AJAX is XML (Extensible Markup Language). As the name suggests, XML is a markup language, which means that it belongs to the same family as languages such as HTML and CSS. Markup languages are coding languages used to annotate parts of a web document that are intended to give web browsers instructions on how to understand, process, and display a web page, relative to actual text. intended to be displayed on the page. While HTML and CSS focus on instructions for displaying the content of the page (paragraphs, headers, fonts, colors, etc.), XML is used to transfer the data stored on the page to the browsers that view it. . Individual computer systems are often mutually incompatible and cannot understand or interact with data formatted by another system. XML allows developers to get around this obstacle by storing data in plain text format between XML tags. In doing so, XML offers a way to store, move, and share data that does not depend on a particular software or hardware system (something that is crucial for the Internet, where data must be available and understandable on all platforms. software and hardware.). RSS feeds (subscription-based web feeds that allow users to access blog content and news sources as they are updated in real time) are built with XML and are an example of practical capabilities language data sharing. But how does XML combine with JavaScript to form AJAX?
How does AJAX work?
According to Cascarano, JavaScript and XML combine so that the asynchronous update occurs through the use of something called an XMLHttpRequest object. When a user visits a web page designed to use AJAX and a prescribed event occurs (the user loads the page, clicks on a button, fills out a form, etc.) JavaScript creates an XMLHttpRequest object, which then transfers the data in an XML format between a web browser (the program used to display the website) and a web server (software or hardware on which data from a website is stored). The XMLHttpRequest object sends a request for updated page data to the web server, the server processes the request, a response is created on the server side, and returned to the browser, which then uses JavaScript to process the response and display it to screen as updated content.
To summarize: JavaScript automates the update process, the request for updated content is formatted in XML to make it universally understandable, and JavaScript intervenes again to update the relevant content for the user viewing the page. Cascarano notes that the AJAX technique ignores unnecessary page data and only handles requests for updated information and the updated information itself. This is really at the heart of the effectiveness of AJAX, which makes websites and applications that use AJAX faster and more responsive to users.
How can you learn AJAX?
While the ins and outs of JavaScript and the markup languages themselves are probably best learned through online or in-person courses, Cascarano says that putting these skills together and mastering the AJAX technique can easily be done through tutorials. online. Web resources with the free AJAX tutorial include, but are not limited to, Udacity, jQuery, Webucator and Code School. Remember, if you have already learned JavaScript, HTML and XML, or even if you are currently in the process of learning, AJAX is simply a method of bringing together those skills that can be learned over hours, as opposed to an entirely new skill. And when it comes to landing web developer jobs, Cascarano says it’s worth spending those hours and getting to know the AJAX technique. Although it is not an autonomous skill, AJAX is a technique so universal and so essential to frontal development that every time you get to know it, you will be reimbursed exponentially. As of this writing, there are nearly 5,000 job openings on Glassdoor that explicitly cite AJAX knowledge as a requirement, and nearly 93,000 front-end developer jobs in general, all of which will welcome your mastery of AJAX .
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