The Ten Best Ajax Links: Tutorials, Examples, and History


Asynchronous JavaScript and XML is the newest phenomenon to hit the net. I’m sure most of you have heard of it as the catchy little name of Ajax. Ajax is all the rage now if you want a trendy website. If you have a website, or portal you run; it will almost guarantee you get hits if you put some Ajax in there, and advertise that you have done so.

In order to help you in your quest to add some Ajax code into your site; I have scoured the net for the ten best tutorials, and examples.

  1. Ajax Tutorial: Ajax What is it Good For?
    1. This site covers not only how to code in Ajax, and to implement it into your site, but also the history of it, and how it came to be. It is a good place to start.
  2. Rasmus’ 30 second Ajax Tutorial
    1. This is a quick and dirty introduction to Ajax. It doesn’t go in depth, but in 30 seconds (ok, a few minutes) you should be able to comprehend it; if you have coding knowledge.
  3. Ajax: Getting Started
    1. This is from the Mozilla developer center. This is also a somewhat basic introduction to Ajax, but it is quite nicely laid out.
  4. Interactivity with Remote Scripting
    1. This is just like the first two, basic, yet understandable. A good read if you are still having trouble understanding Ajax, and remote scripting.
  5. Ajax Examples
    1. This site isn’t so much a tutorial, as it is a comprehensive list of Ajax examples. The author lists real world uses of Ajax to give you ideas on what you can use it for in your sites.
  6. Ajax (programming)
    1. Wikipedia usually has a plethora of information and links for many, many topics. This is also true for Ajax programming. There is some great information here, and make sure to check out the external links at the end of the wiki.
  7. Ajax in ASP.NET
    1. If you are an ASP.NET developer, than this is the place to take a look at once you understand the basics of Ajax. Microsoft is busy working on their own implementation of Ajax; called Atlas, but it isn’t ready yet.
  8. Ajax with J2EE
    1. Another tutorial of Ajax, this time implementing with J2EE.
  9. Ruby on Rails
    1. There is a very active group of developers that swear by Ruby on Rails. It is a framework that accelerates the development of Ajax. It is considered a very fleshed out and easy to use version of Ajax. As a bonus; Ruby is incredibly easy to learn to code in.
  10. Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications
    1. It’s probably best to actually include the article that coined the term Ajax. It doesn’t have code examples, but does give a nice walkthrough of how Ajax actually works.

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November 15th, 2005
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Comment Number:
1
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
November 15, 2005 at 10:53 am

Good post… Pull the .NET stuff off the top 10 and get a 5 :)

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
November 15, 2005 at 11:10 am

Nice collection of links – have seen most, discovered a few. And to .Net-Hater, waah.

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
November 15, 2005 at 11:18 am

Don’t forget the Microsoft Outlook’s web client was first to have this type of functionality. XMLHttpRequest was originally implemented as an ActiveX control “Microsoft.XMLHTTP”. So easy to hate on MS when you’re not totally informed.

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
November 15, 2005 at 12:12 pm

MS was not the first.. I was doing AJAX before it was ajax using Image objects and javascript, I’ve also invented several other methods that do similar or the same functionality. Microsoft is evil, never forget that. :)

James Wilson
James@JamesWilson.name

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
November 15, 2005 at 12:31 pm

James Wilson, you’re all kinds of wrong. Microsoft INVENTED this technology, with the XMLHTTPRequest object (first introduced with the Outlook Web Access client).

Moz incorporated their flavor (has most of the properties of MS’), and it got written into W3C, too.

But make no mistake, it’s MS that gave us this, back in 1998.

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
November 15, 2005 at 1:12 pm

That was back in 1998. Sure, Microsoft gave us many things, but now they’ve become aggressive…in a very bad way.

Comment Number:
7
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
November 16, 2005 at 7:58 am

Seriously, I’m amazed people use ajax. it’s the most code inefficient piece of shit js < -> server communication. Good luck running an ajax site at a webcafé. :P Nah, there are far better methods of attaining this.. and using images to php files isn’t one of them either. Though, it may be better. I’ve not tried. :) I have my own tried and true methods. ;)

Comment Number:
8
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
November 16, 2005 at 3:50 pm

AJAX is simply an evolution of already existing techniques and not a creation of MS. Most of these techniques have been in niche use for quite some time. It’s only since the introduction of a stable line of browsers that can all use js/css to some similar degree that it has started to catch on. Props to MS for introducing the xmlhttprequest functionality, but it’s not as if the techniques can’t be used with out it. Before xmlhttprequest we were creating xml and stuffing it into textareas to send back to the server via an iframe. Before that it was comma delimited values. We even have scripting set up for the last 7-8 years that simply takes whatever content loads into an iframe and writes it directly into the parent page.

Comment Number:
9
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
November 18, 2005 at 12:26 pm

AJAX, just sounds Toxic – ooooh :-)

Comment Number:
10
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
November 25, 2005 at 4:38 am

you might want to update the wiki page with these links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX

Comment Number:
11
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
November 27, 2005 at 7:04 am

Why does everyone get tore up about something we can use or not use?

Comment Number:
12
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
November 30, 2005 at 6:46 pm

# Ajax Tutorial: Ajax What is it Good For?

1. This site covers not only how to code in Ajax, and to …. be. It is a good place to start.

So, you can’t port 37 frames of text to a print version. This link maybe full of content but I don’t want 37 bite size pieces I want to be able to digest it.
Really wanting to explore this stuff and like the nice clean interface but it was just a bit tooooo clean. Move it down the ladder

Otherwise Good list

Comment Number:
13
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
December 15, 2005 at 2:18 am

too many links.
may as well use a search engine

Comment Number:
14
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
January 24, 2006 at 7:02 pm

http://www.shadows.com/comment/e88d131f-9c1d-4290-a0bb-ad9a04b416e7/

Comment Number:
15
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
February 16, 2006 at 1:03 am

Another nice tutorial I found in Rasmus’s comments and which made it a lot easier:

http://aleembawany.com/weblog/webdev/000038_ajax_instant_tutorial.html

Comment Number:
16
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
February 22, 2006 at 3:04 am

The series of articles on Ajax by Brett McLaughlin is the best (by far) I’ve read on the subject so far. Three episodes so far, and I can hardly wait for the next.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/views/web/libraryview.jsp?search_by=Mastering+Ajax . These should definitely make it into your list.

Comment Number:
17
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
April 25, 2006 at 11:36 am

The series of articles on Ajax by Brett McLaughlin is the best (by far) I’ve read on the subject so far. Three episodes so far, and I can hardly wait for the next.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/views/web/libraryview.jsp?search_by=Mastering+Ajax . These should definitely make it into your list

The above from anonymous is really a great resource.

Comment Number:
18
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
June 2, 2006 at 6:22 am

There is a ajax based product search for the german market up at http://www.informationsarchiv.biz/ – It uses a doubleslider to specify a pricerange and has some other interesting features. It’s really a thing to look at – Just fill out the search-form and play around.

Comment Number:
19
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
June 23, 2006 at 2:27 pm

Nice, but will this list stay up-to-date? TagTooga is a wiki with similar lists, editable by anybody and link checking is automatic and periodic to keep out the dead links. Ajax Tutorials. Shouldn’t any list about Ajax be Web 2.0-ish (i.e. read-write vs. read-only)?

Comment Number:
20
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
July 9, 2006 at 2:47 pm

more tutorials in http://www.ajaxprojects.com

Comment Number:
21
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
July 9, 2006 at 2:48 pm

Ajax Tutorials here in ajax projects

Comment Number:
22
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
July 9, 2006 at 2:50 pm

Ajax Tutorials

Comment Number:
23
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
August 24, 2006 at 11:55 pm

isnt Ajax a football team from Holland?

J/K… I just had a quick play with Rasmus’ 30 second tutorial… if you are a quick reader, then it is worth it all… other than that, it’s a good set of links.

Comment Number:
24
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
October 17, 2006 at 1:43 am

How about a Top10 Ajax Toolkits ?
I’m trying to decide on a toolkit and stick with it.. but there are so many!
- I want to be a Lite version of Ajax (Lite = “I will use Ajax here and there..” but not all tthe time.. )
- To be able to load widgets on the run..(like Dojo)
- To be open source with a big support.

Comment Number:
25
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
November 16, 2006 at 3:18 pm

best ajax autocomplete i found

http://capxous.com

Comment Number:
26
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
December 20, 2006 at 8:27 am

Microsoft might have invented AJAX like Columbus invented America. I remember back in ‘97 I used to use a community site that had AJAX-like functionallity. It would ping each time I got a new message – even if I didn’t do a page load. This – in essence – was AJAX functionallity, but it wasn’t called AJAX.

Comment Number:
27
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
March 27, 2007 at 7:11 am

If it was any doubt that ajax is difficult in ASP.NET check out http://ajaxwidgets.com

Comment Number:
28
Written by:
anonymous
Posted on:
March 27, 2007 at 7:12 am

Forgot to make a link:

ajax controls