NetSherpa Journal

I’ve been doing web development since the 8th grade, I’m now 20, and I’ve gotten mediocre at it. I only recently learned the in’s and out’s of AJAX, with code and variables being passed through a myriad of files just to produce formatted database results on the page without reloading.

AJAX isn’t so much a language as it is a technique. It utilizes JavaScript called through HTML to then create a background process that checks for changes from the user. It then will send the change to whatever is required (eg. Javascript can’t access MySQL, so you call a .php file to do the querying) which returns the information in whatever format is required (XML probably formatted with an XSL stylesheet) back to the JavaScript, followed by the JavaScript inserting the new data into the browser window. Phew. The web’s really come a long way, and with the rise of ‘web applications’ it’s really obvious how much of a “let’s just get this thing up and running” experiment the internet was back in it’s roots.

No matter how many subroutines and back end processes you have, the page still has to be sent to the user’s browser formatted with HTML (Alright, so there’s plenty else, but that’s not the point). The web used to be all simple 1-for-1 (1 page request - 1 page response) communications that were unanimous across the board, where as now it can be 1-for-X (1 page request - X many responses) thanks to some hard working coders that really enlightened us to the power of combining server technologies through the first notable AJAX application, Google Maps. It didn’t reload, you could just slide around, zoom in, place landmarks, all without ever changing the URL (Without flash or some other ‘aftermarket’ if you will, plug-in). This interoperability of server processes allowed for many levels of abstraction between the user and the server, such as an interface that changes itself intuitively, or one that could produce results that acknowledge the user’s level. Google’s playground. They took to it with apps such as Gmail and Google Suggest in a way that finally a fully interfaced, quick and responsive application through direct browser use by a client was indeed do-able without Flash, Java (Well, Javascript of course), or any other ‘extra’ plugins.

The web may not be obsolete, but it is moving in a direction expected, and that is of connecting people with other people. Social Networks. I might make a post on them at some point… Probably not.

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