I was reading some posts on the ajax-web-technology news group until I come across a post that discribes a problem:
AJAX applications create web-pages that are less machine-readable / linkable (try bookmarking a google map). This is probably the biggest criticism of AJAX ... that it breaks the history and bookmarking functionalities of the web browser. Using the hash is probably the best way you will find to beat this for AJAX. There's another great workaround: use a traditional web application.
You can try to replicate browser features that AJAX breaks and which are necessary for you to AJAXify traditional web app, but you're really wasting your time.
With all the hype going around AJAX, a lot of applications that do not have a real need for it have been built. These are toys meant to prove that AJAX is fun, but with little or no use in real-life situations.
There are many benefits of Ajax. The major one is:
- From an user view: the interface is much more responsive, because only a small part of the page is transferred at a time. The user has the feeling that changes are instantaneous.
- From the server view: The CPU time and the trafic from the server are reduced because you do not have to send the entire page content (CSS, images, static sections)
So use Ajax when:
- The application you are building involves heavy server requests
- The Application response time is a concern
- The bandwidth usage is a concern
Not use Ajex when:
- The application must be accessed by older browsers
- Users do not interact with the application on a frequent basis
- Loading times and bandwidth usage is not a primary concern
- The application does not vary content very much
Yes, AJAX is not the solution for eveything
When you get data from the server by AJAX, you don't have link to display it again.
That is my biggest problem with AJAX
AJAX applications create web-pages that are less machine-readable / linkable (try bookmarking a google map). This is probably the biggest criticism of AJAX ... that it breaks the history and bookmarking functionalities of the web browser. Using the hash is probably the best way you will find to beat this for AJAX. There's another great workaround: use a traditional web application.
You can try to replicate browser features that AJAX breaks and which are necessary for you to AJAXify traditional web app, but you're really wasting your time.
With all the hype going around AJAX, a lot of applications that do not have a real need for it have been built. These are toys meant to prove that AJAX is fun, but with little or no use in real-life situations.
There are many benefits of Ajax. The major one is:
- From an user view: the interface is much more responsive, because only a small part of the page is transferred at a time. The user has the feeling that changes are instantaneous.
- From the server view: The CPU time and the trafic from the server are reduced because you do not have to send the entire page content (CSS, images, static sections)
So use Ajax when:
- The application you are building involves heavy server requests
- The Application response time is a concern
- The bandwidth usage is a concern
Not use Ajex when:
- The application must be accessed by older browsers
- Users do not interact with the application on a frequent basis
- Loading times and bandwidth usage is not a primary concern
- The application does not vary content very much
Yes, AJAX is not the solution for eveything