Proof of Concept For Ajax Without JavaScript

JonathansCorner.com writes "Even if Ajax was backronymed to 'Asynchronous JavaScript and XML,' it works with JSON substituted for XML. Here's a proof of concept that JavaScript/VBScript are not strictly necessary either. The technique, besides being used standalone, may be useful to provide a better 'graceful degradation' for Ajax applications used by clients with scripting turned off."

and the grounbreaking solution is.... iframe

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously? has existed longer than 'Ajax', this is not a new development or a novel new spin on existing tech. This is just, well, using/i> iframes.

Lame.

CGI scripts

[acid06]

Site is Slashdotted.

And this is the reason why you shouldn't use CGI scripts these days - the interface sucks and forking a process for each request is very expensive.

By the way, before any Perl-bashing trolls come around: they're CGI scripts written in Python (How shocking, huh? Anything sucks when you're using plain old CGI).

How is this new?

[vivin]

Posting to an iframe and loading the iframe with dynamic content?

Haven't RTFA (slashdotted), but I used to do "AJAX" without "AJAX" in the early 2000's. You would post to a hidden iframe and the dynamic content that was loaded in the iframe was Javascript, which would manipulate the parent page. Either that or it was JSON would you would then access from the parent page.

Re:CGI scripts

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are forking a sub-process for every CGI script call, you're doing it wrong .-)

Fastcgi came around in the nineties and there exists various pooled process executors for various techs (perl, C etc).

I agree CGI is a web relic, but it isn't necessarily as bad as you painted it.

This is news?

[bearinboots]

Wow. The barrier to entry for getting an article on slashdot has really lowered, hasn't it? How is this even worth the blog post?

Re:This is news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Posted by timothy.

Re:1998 exactly

[Shin-LaC]

There is NOTHING new in programming technology and hasn't been for a longest time. Really, in 16 years I can only truly say that bit-torrent was somehow a unique/new idea, but I think even that wasn't that radical, just the protocol was new.

I mean this in the nicest possible way, but the only reason why you think that is that you have an extremely limited perspective on programming.

Re:CGI scripts

[merreborn]

Sure, being able to click and drag an online map was neat when it first came out, but faster than clicking an arrow in the corner? Not for me... I'd rather have it move in whole, consistent, step sizes. And faster? Hell no! I sit around waiting several seconds for Google maps to load up, prompt after prompt to "keep waiting" or else any address you type in will get munged.

Wow. How's the weather back in 1998?

I've got a PC that I built for $300 in 2008, and two macbooks (the bottom of the line models. Not the Pro). They're all behind a perfectly average comcast cable modem. Running Google Chrome, google maps loads just as fast as any desktop app, on any and all of 'em. This is not a bleeding edge setup.

So... Is it your Pentium 2, or your 9600 baud modem that's holding you back?

You're right... AJAX doesn't run great on systems built before the turn of the century. If you don't like it, pick up a system that has more than 64 meg of ram. You have every right not to upgrade, but if you choose not to, you have no right to bitch.

The "everything should run on my Windows 95 machine" mindset drives me nuts. I bet driving your Model T on the interstate isn't much fun either.

Re:iFrames?

[jgagnon]

Never waste your mod points on AC.