[uf-rest] AHAH and AJAX

[Ryan King]

On Nov 18, 2005, at 1:31 PM, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar wrote:
> On Nov 18, 2005, at 1:25 PM, Tantek Çelik wrote:
>> So is AHAH then just a particular flavor of AJAX?
>
> Yeah, I would say so.  In fact, I think I already did:
>
> http://microformats.org/wiki/rest/ahah#Relation_to_AJAX
>> Strictly speaking, AHAH can be considered a subset of AJAX, since  
>> (X)HTML is just a special kind of XML. However, it is a subset  
>> with some very specific and useful properties:

We're coming at this from totally different sides.

Indeed, AHAH can be considered AJAX, because XHTML is XML. However, I  
want to point out how people use XmlHttpRequest in "real life".

Instead of following the AJAX idea, where you make a HTTP request,  
get it back, parse the XML and do something fun with it, most people  
do all the "fun stuff on the server side" and just send back some  
html that they can throw in an html element with innerHTML. So, my  
point here is that it doesn't matter what the contents are, they're  
treated as just a string of text.

>> The lack of custom XML schemas dramatically reduces design time
>> AHAH can trivially reuse existing HTML pages, avoiding the need  
>> for a custom web service
>> All data transport is done via browser-friend HTML, easing  
>> debugging and testing
>> The HTML is designed to be directly embedded in the page's DOM,  
>> eliminating the need for parsing
>> As HTML, designers can format it using CSS, rather than  
>> programmers having to do XSLT transforms
> Going from AJAX to AHAH is just a minor technical detail, but  
> (IMHO) a major conceptual shift.

People have already made the shift.

-ryan
--
Ryan King
ryan at technorati.com