Foundational Technology patterns: Overview the raw technologies required for AJAX development
Programming patterns: Expose techniques developers have been discovering to ensure their applications are maintainable
Functionality and Usability patterns: Describe the types of user interfaces used in AJAX applications, and the new types of functionality that they make possible
Development patterns: Explain the processes being used to monitor, debug, and test web applications
Ajax Design Patterns gives readers an understanding of what is possible and what's not with AJAX, and shows them how it is being used in the real world. Technical discussions followed by examples bring readers up to speed with core Web 2.0 technologies, such as XMLHttpRequest, the DOM, and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). Readers will also discover the patterns that developers are using to produce high-quality architectures, streamline performance, and improve usability.
Aside from observing the amazing rise in AJAX itself, to Mahemoff, it's been fascinating to take a step back and look at how advanced enabling tools and technologies have become. "I first got into patterns in 1997 and the change is remarkable," he says. "First off, the notion of patterns is widely accepted in the software industry, and almost everyone seems to appreciate the need for collecting AJAX patterns. Moreover, it's so much easier to study a broad cross-section of applications now, thanks to the web and related technologies. Not only are web applications accessible at the click of a link, but there are so many of them out there to be studied. A single category, like 'AJAX word-processors' will usually have a dozen examples to consider, leading to rich, broadly applicable, patterns.
"Furthermore, the combination of blogs, wikis, and podcasts--all simple but exceedingly powerful tools--means that information can be disseminated so much faster than before," he continues. "While writing this book, I was able to publish an idea on my blog ..., and within a day, it had been scrutinized by the community. Promising design ideas--such as the incredible (at the time) use of auto-completion by Google Suggest's--rise to prominence in a matter of hours."