Traditional Web Development Versus Ajax Development

Until the last couple years, web applications have lagged well behind desktop applications in regard to their look and feel, made all the worse by performance problems brought on by slow internet connections. However, with the advent of Ajax, all this is beginning to change. Using Ajax, web developers can now create robust web-based applications capable of rivaling their desktop counterparts. When combined with today’s high-speed internet access and powerful web servers, Ajax applications are capable of offering a level of performance that makes web-based applications a viable option for today’s computer users.

Thanks to Ajax, web applications no longer have that web feel. For example, rather than forcing customers to move from one screen to another when making purchases, Ajax applications can seamlessly allow customers to select merchandise, add it to a shopping cart, and then complete the purchase all from the same web page, without once ever forcing a screen refresh or requiring the customer to advance through a series of screens.

 Traditional web applications are made up of any number of loosely integrated web pages, which are then displayed in a predefined order through links embedded within HTML pages.

As such, in order to work with traditional web applications, the user must move from web page to web page interacting with a different portion of the application in a step-by-step process. Each time the customer clicks on a link to the next inventory page, a brief wait ensues while the customer waits for that page to be loaded.

Using this traditional approach, HTTP requests are submitted to the web server in response to user actions. Upon receiving the request, the web server satisfies the request by returning a new web page, which the web browser then displays.