Introducing Asynchronous JavaScript Technology and XML (AJAX)
——AJAX介绍
Using JavaScript technology, an HTML page can asynchronously make calls to the server from which it was loaded and fetch XML documents. The XML documents may then be used by the JavaScript technology to update or modify the Document Object Model (DOM) of the HTML page. The term Asynchronous JavaScript Technology and XML (AJAX) has emerged recently to describe this interaction model. ——使用JavaScript技术、HTML网页可以异步调用生成它的服务器上的服务并可以获取返回的XML文档形式的结果。JavaScript再使用这个XML文档更新或改动本网页的文档对象模型（DOM）、名词AJAX就是近年来出现的用与描述这种交互模式的新名词。
AJAX is not new. These techniques have been available to developers targeting Internet Explorer on the Windows platform for many years. Until recently, the technology was known as web remoting or remote scripting. Web developers have also used a combination of plug-ins, Java applets, and hidden frames to emulate this interaction model for some time. What has changed recently is that the inclusion of support for the XMLHttpRequest object has became ubiquitous in the mainstream browsers across all platforms. The real magic is the result of the JavaScript technology’s XMLHttpRequest object. Although this object is not specified in the formal JavaScript technology specification, all of today’s mainstream browsers support it. The subtle differences with the JavaScript technology and CSS support among current generation browsers such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari are manageable. If you are required to support older browsers, AJAX may not be the answer for you. ——AJAX并不是新事物、数年前使用微软IE浏览器的开发者们就在使用它、直到最近、这项技术被冠以远程脚本而更出名了。以前WEB开发者使用插件、applets或者隐藏框架来仿效这种交互模式。但是现在由于XMLHttpRequest对象技术已经在各大平台的主流浏览器上普及、所以这种模仿的情况越来越少了。真正神奇的事情在于JavaScript和XMLHttpRequest对象技术的结合、尽管XMLHttpRequest对象技术并不属于JavaScript标准规范、但是现代的主流浏览器都支持、在Firefox、IE、 Safari这些浏览器对JavaScript和CSS的执行有微小不同、但这些不同之处很容易理解和处理。如果你一定要兼容老一代浏览器那还是不要用AJAX了。
