3.4. Summary

The examples in this chapter cover the basic ways to consume the data we learned to transfer in Chapter 2. Although fully working, their simple implementation is not the best choice for most production environments, because their simple style does not provide the robustness and feature set that a larger library would provide. In Chapters 912, many of these same patterns will be implemented using various libraries. These libraries offer better error handling and various helper functions to remove some of the repetitive code in the example. The more complex libraries also allow you to mix and match RPC serialization types, letting you use whatever serialization format is most efficient for the data in question.

You have two main choices when working with AJAX data:

• Document-centric approaches easily fit into current server-side modules and allow for a loose coupling between the client and the server.

• RPC-based approaches produce a tight coupling with the server side but offer the ability to write simpler server-side code.

Either approach will allow you to successfully build AJAX applications, but neither choice will guarantee it. Successful AJAX applications are not created because of implementation choices (although a good implementation always helps). They are created by good, user-centered design; the AJAX addition improves usability and gives the user the ability to do things he or she never imagined.