AJAX

AJAX (shorthand for asynchronous JavaScript and XML^[1]) is a group of interrelated web development techniques used on the client-side to create interactive web applications. With AJAX, web applications can retrieve data from the server asynchronously in the background without interfering with the display and behavior of the existing page. The use of AJAX techniques has led to an increase in interactive or dynamic interfaces on web pages^[2][3] and better quality of Web services due to the asynchronous mode. Data is usually retrieved using the XMLHttpRequest object. Despite the name, the use of JavaScript and XML is not actually required, nor do the requests need to be asynchronous.^[4]

History

Techniques for the asynchronous loading of content date back to the mid 1990s. Java applets were introduced in the first version of the Java language in 1995. These allow compiled client-side code to load data asynchronously from the web server after a web page is loaded.^[5] In 1996, Internet Explorer introduced the IFrame element to HTML, which also enables this to be achieved.^[6] In 1999, Microsoft created the XMLHTTP ActiveX control in Internet Explorer 5, which is now supported by Mozilla, Safari and other browsers as the native XMLHttpRequest object.^[6][7] However, this feature only became widely known after being used by Gmail (2004) and Google Maps (2005).^[8]

The term "Ajax" itself was coined in 2005.^[1]Jesse James Garrett thought of the term "AJAX" while in the shower,^[9] when he realized the need for a shorthand term to represent the suite of technologies he was proposing to a client.^{[citation needed]}

On April 5, 2006 the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) released the first draft specification for the object in an attempt to create an official web standard.^[8]