September 2013
Intermediate to advanced
398 pages
10h 52m
English
Content preview from High Performance Browser Networking
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Chapter 15. XMLHttpRequest
XMLHttpRequest (XHR) is a browser-level API that enables the client to script data transfers via JavaScript. XHR made its first debut in Internet Explorer 5, became one of the key technologies behind the Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) revolution, and is now a fundamental building block of nearly every modern web application.
XMLHTTP changed everything. It put the “D” in DHTML. It allowed us to asynchronously get data from the server and preserve document state on the client… The Outlook Web Access (OWA) team’s desire to build a rich Win32 like application in a browser pushed the technology into IE that allowed AJAX to become a reality.
Jim Van Eaton, Outlook Web Access: A catalyst for web evolution
Prior to XHR, the web page had to be refreshed to send or fetch any state updates between the client and server. With XHR, this workflow could be done asynchronously and under full control of the application JavaScript code. XHR is what enabled us to make the leap from building pages to building interactive web applications in the browser.
However, the power of XHR is not only that it enabled asynchronous communication within the browser, but also that it made it simple. XHR is an application API provided by the browser, which is to say that the browser automatically takes care of all the low-level connection management, protocol negotiation, formatting of HTTP requests, and much more:
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The browser manages connection establishment, pooling, and ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.