Understanding AJAX: Using JavaScript to Create Rich Internet Applications

AJAX: fast mastery for experienced Web developers!

Already an experienced Web developer? Apply your skills in today s fastest-growing area of Web development: AJAX!

Building on what you already know, this fast-paced guide will show you exactly how to create rich, usable Internet applications. Joshua Eichorn teaches through sophisticated code examples, including extensive server-side PHP code.

You won t just learn how to code AJAX applications: Eichorn covers the entire development lifecycle, from use cases and design through debugging. He also presents detailed application case studies, including a start-to-finish update of a non-AJAX application that addresses everything from feature improvements to changing usage patterns. Coverage includes:

How AJAX changes the conventional Web development cycle

Problems created by the AJAX paradigm -- and how to avoid them

Adding AJAX to existing Web applications: key considerations

Using core AJAX technologies, including the XMLHttpRequest object

Consuming data returned to an AJAX application using both XSLT and JSON

Building more usable AJAX applications: guidelines and downloadable resources

Use cases: solving real-world problems in the AJAX environment

Libraries and toolkits for simplifying AJAX development, including Sarissa, scriptaculous, and HTML_AJAX

A complete guide to AJAX debugging

Supporting browsers without XMLHttpRequest by using IFrames or cookies

JSON data encoding debugging guide, which covers tools for Firefox and Internet Explorer

A list of libraries, which includes PHP, .NET, Java, and other libraries that can be used with any server language