JavaScript: What is AJAX? What is jQuery?

Question

What exactly IS AJAX? Is there an official release?

What exactly is jQuery? Is there an official release?

From what I understand, these two "extensions" of JavaScript are just small scripts that enable extended functionality. But, what exactly are there? I mean, Adobe is a company that created Flash. If you want information about Flash, the official source is at Adobe.

Is there an equivalent for AJAX and jQuery? I don't want to learn AJAX or jQuery form some shmo that doesn't know that correct syntax. I want to learn proper syntax and best practices.

EDIT: Thanks for posting your responses... oh, and thanks for the smart ass replies too. They help tons.

Answer 1

http://jquery.com

http://ajax.com

No .. wait ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming)

Answer 2

jQuery has an official site. www.jQuery.com. Read all about it there.

AJAX is a technique for fetching data without refreshing the whole page. That one is quite expansive and you'll probably just want to google it.

You can do ajax with jQuery :)

Answer 3

jQuery is by far the most amazing Javascript library I've ever touched. Ajax is what jQuery does best (Getting infomation without reloading the page)

Answer 4

Ajax is Asynchronous Javascript and XML, a technique where you can perform a partial postback to the server. You can return many different data types (Html, XML, JSON, unformatted text)

There are different implementations of ajax on different frameworks / libraries so I wouldnt say theres an official release as such.

JQuery is a javascript library which has powerful selectors and the ability to do partial postbacks via $.get, $.getJSON, $.ajax

The nice this about jQuery is that it wraps up all the browser compatability issues behind the scenes.

Here is a jQuery ajax method:

        function hijack(form, callback, format) {
        $("#indicator").show();

        $.ajax({
            url: form.action,
            type: form.method,
            dataType: format,
            data: $(form).serialize(),
            completed: $("#indicator").hide(),
            success: callback
        });
    }

Answer 5

Chances are good that "AJAX" is not what many think it to be. It's really an abbreviation of Asynchronous Javascript and XML, where XML is the extensible markup language. Today, people generally call any asynchronous activity "ajax," even including some dynamic ui elements in the mix too. AJAX is the practice of making calls to other scripts via javascript without having to refresh your page. Responses aren't always in XML though, as JSON (Javascript Object Notation) is a wildly popular format too.

jQuery is a framework - just a collection of cleverly written javascript methods wrapped up inside the $ symbol that allow you to do things quicker, and without as much troubleshooting in Javascript. jQuery even helps you do "AJAX" by providing tons of functionality that allows you to request data from other pages on your server, or submit form data without actually having to refresh the page. For specifics about jQuery, visit http://jquery.com.

Answer 6

jQuery is a really good Javascript library that makes Ajax (as well as lots of other things) easier.

Don't worry about Ajax. It's just a buzz word for "getting the browser and server to talk to each other without reloading the whole page", and people use the word in horribly inconsistent ways. You won't get consistent answers to what Ajax actually is, because nobody agrees on what qualifies as Ajax. Lots of Ajax nowadays uses Json instead of XML - is that really Ajax? Who knows. It was a cool buzz-word when the technology was new, but now that libraries like jQuery have made it easy to do it's just a distraction.