AJAX - The most abused term on the Internet

Posted: 05/07/07

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Through recent work I've been undertaking and reading articles around the web, it has become increasingly obvious to me that not only is 'AJAX' the biggest buzz-word boardroom fat-cats want to get their mits on, but it's also the most abused!

Anything where client-side task, be it document manipulation or in-line validation, appears to have been stuffed under the gigantic AJAX umbrella. It's rare that I see the AJAX term being used appropriately, and as a consequence confusion ensues. I can understand why non-technical peers use the term as an adjective, as it serves as a great descriptor, despite them wanting for a better word.

So what's the answer? I think we need to stop giving businesses and clients buzz-words like AJAX. Clients don't need to know how we achieve a specific requirement; just that we can achieve it, and we may or may not use asynchronous calls, if it's appropriate. It is our responsibility to define the technical solution to a higher-level business problem; not be prescribed a load of technologies that we MUST use.

Keywords for this post: ajax, asynchronous