Developing AJAX Applications the Easy Way

AJAX is the buzzword of the moment among web developers, so much so that you could be sick of introductions to AJAX by now (if that's the case, skip down to 'The Chat Web Page'). AJAX is a technology that is hotly debated from many angles, but it has stuck because it encapsulates something that is new from a user's perspective. The functionally that is newly available to all web users is 'in-page replacement': the ability for a web page to change using data from a web server without totally redrawing itself. This functionality has been around in Mozilla and Internet Explorer for a while, but it is only recently that Safari and Konqueror users have been able to join in