Head First Ajax

Chapter 8. Frameworks and Toolkits: Trust No One

So what’s the real story behind all those Ajax frameworks?

If you’ve been in Webville awhile, you’ve probably run across at least one JavaScript or Ajax framework. Some frameworks give you convenience methods for working with the DOM. Others make validation and sending requests simple. Still others come with libraries of pre-packaged JavaScript screen effects. But which one should you use? And how do you know what’s really going on inside that framework? It’s time to do more than use other people’s code... it’s time to take control of your applications.

There are a LOT of options for frameworks that let you work with Ajax in different (and sometimes easier) ways.

If you Google the Internet for “JavaScript framework” or “Ajax library,” you’ll get a whole slew of links to different toolkits. And each framework’s a bit different. Some are great for providing slick screen effects, like drag-and-drop, fades, and transitions. Others are good at sending and receiving Ajax requests in just a line or two of code.

In fact, you’ve been using a framework of sorts every time you reference a function from utils.js. All that script does is provide common functionality in a reusable package. Of course, most frameworks have a lot more functionality, but the ...