March 2006
Beginner to intermediate
448 pages
13h 33m
English
Content preview from Head Rush Ajax
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38
Chapter 1
To gure out what’s going on, we’re going to have to step back a bit, and
think about web applications in general. When you think about a web
appl, you probably think about an HTML page, some JavaScript code, a
bit of CSS for style, and maybe a web server running some scripts or a
servlet. All these pieces work together, like this:
How we see web apps...
JavaScript
Request
Web Server
Response
<html>
.
.
.
</html>
h1, h2 {
fon
col
}
p {
HTML
CSS
You use HTML to say
what a web page is...
...and CSS
to say how
the page
should look.
The HTML and CSS get
combined into what we actually
see—the web page.
You use JavaScript to say
what a web page does.
The web server waits on
requests, and then sends
data back to your web page.
But there’s more going on than meets the eye...
PHP scripts, Java servlets,
Ruby programs, and other
server-side components.
<script>
var request...
function foo()
{
...
}
</script>
a simplistic view of web applications
you’re on your way 4
39
next generation applications
?
It’s time to test those higher-order thinking skills. There’s an important
character in the Ajax play that you haven’t met yet, and he’s ready to make
his grand entrance. See if you can upstage this new character by guring
out who he is before you turn the page. We’ve managed to collect a few
quotes from the ...