I’ve been a bit of the Ajax poster boy lately. Two pieces that I wrote for library audiences have just been published.

“Building an Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) Application from Scratch.” Computers in Libraries 26, no. 10 (November/December 2006).

“Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML): This Isn’t the Web I’m Used To.” Online 30, no. 6 (November/December 2006)
uri: http://www.infotoday.com/Online/nov06/Clark.shtml

Both articles fall into the “introductory” mode, although the CIL article walks you through a proof of concept Ajax page update script (mentioned in an earlier post…). I want to be clear: I’m not an Ajax evangelist. I find the suite of technologies that make Ajax go intriguing and the improvements that the Ajax framework can make to some library applications are worth learning about and applying. I tried to point out the good and the bad. Although, it is a four letter word…

I did want to mention a couple of books that were really helpful in getting me up to speed with the Ajax method.

Ajax in Action by Dave Crane, Eric Pascarello and Darren James

DHTML Utopia Modern Web Design Using JavaScript & DOM by Stuart Langridge

(Click on the book covers if you are into book learnin’ and want to browse the Amazon records.) Dig in and discover (or rediscover) some of the possibilities when you put Javascript to work in your apps.