Chapter 1. Atlas, Ajax, and ASP.NET
This book is about Atlas, the code name for a collection of new Microsoft technologies that enable web developers, particularly ASP.NET 2.0 developers, to create web sites with pages that use Ajax more easily. Ajax-style pages provide a richer interface to users, they are more responsive, because the page can react immediately to users, and they can interact more or less immediately with the server. Atlas also includes tools for creating mashups: web applications that combine content from multiple sites, typically using the APIs provided by third-party web services. We’ll be exploring all of these capabilities and more throughout the book; this chapter tells you how to get started with Atlas, paints a broad picture of the technologies involved, and explains how Atlas works from an architectural point of view.
Atlas and Ajax
Atlas builds on near-standard browser technologies, including Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. Ajax has itself generated quite a lot of buzz lately (see the "Preface" for some thoughts about that), since it can bring the functionality and UI of web applications closer to that of desktop applications.
The main idea behind Ajax is to enable web pages to make HTTP requests in the background, or asynchronously, without reloading an entire page (or, in ASP.NET terms, without a roundtrip or a postback). Ajax also provides the means to build a more responsive UI by drawing on the power of JavaScript, the Document Object Model ...