Developing End-to-end Ajax applications, part 1th: Setting up an AJAX environment with a scenario

Ajax (asynchronous JavaScript + XML) is rapidly becoming a trendy technology that can provide desktop-quality software features for WEB applications running in browsers. Open source software (e.g., linux-apache-mysql-php, LAMP) and Java™2 Platform based on open standards, Enterprise Edition middleware (e.g. Ibm®websphere®application S Erver Community Edition) provides excellent support for developing and deploying Ajax WEB applications. This three-part series discusses how to develop an end-to-end Ajax application using open source Middleware, the first article in this series. If you're a novice in Web development, but you can read and understand code written in XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and SQL, this article is right for you. After reading this article, you will have a good understanding of the basic concepts of Ajax and the possible effects of Ajax in a three-tier WEB application scenario.

Ajax is a part of WEB 2.0 technology that has recently been a great concern for architects, developers, product managers, and Web application users. Ajax programming techniques are made up of proven technologies such as XHTML, JavaScript, CSS, and XML Http Request (XHR). Popular service access and data exchange technologies, such as representational state Transfer (REST) and JavaScript Object notation (JSON), are also ideal for Ajax technology. These technologies, which have proven effective on the client side, can be combined with open source technologies such as PHP, Python, and Ruby to extend Ajax to middle-tier application development. On top of this portfolio, you can also build the data tier with open source database MySQL.

Other technologies that match Ajax programming techniques include equally impressive development tools based on Eclipse, which are open source and can be downloaded and used for free. The combination of all the client, middle tier, and data tier technologies mentioned above forms a powerful combination of WEB application development technologies. But how do you develop and deploy an end-to-end Ajax application? This three-part article series will guide you through an end-to-end development scenario to answer this question.

A typical enterprise-class WEB application handles a number of factors to ensure a high degree of robustness. To learn the core features of the selected OSS, our scenario does not take into account key enterprise-class features such as security, scalability, and availability, and you should learn these features from other sources. All the discussions in this article apply only to a class of Ajax applications described in our scenario. Specifically, this series discusses in detail how to create a MySQL database, design and develop the middle-tier/database logic in the PHP runtime environment, and then use JavaScript to create a real one-page Ajax client interface. This series contains code samples that describe the steps required to develop and test AJAX applications in Eclipse, and explain how to deploy AJAX applications in Firefox (client), Zend PHP (middle tier), and MySQL (data tier). This end-to-end application involves the integrated use of XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, XHR, DOM, REST, SOAP, JSON, XML, PHP, MySQL, and Eclipse, covering many of the built-in features of the open source platform mentioned earlier. In short, this series describes how to properly isolate the application layer to form a clean and elegant Web application.

Brief introduction

As the title points out, this three-part series will detail some of the core features of developing an end-to-end Ajax application. These features include specific technologies in the following three application tiers:

Client

Interlayer

Data tier

In the client, technologies such as XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and XML Http Request (XHR) are included. In addition to the several middle-tier open source technologies already mentioned, this series uses PHP because it is very simple and is currently being used widely. Use the MySQL database in the data tier. In addition, this series uses popular WEB services technologies such as REST, SOAP, JSON, and XML. We will use all of these technologies in one scenario.

For End-to-end Ajax application development, you need to follow the steps in the following sections to install and configure the Run-time environment and the development environment. Then we do not routinely provide the Hello world application, but rather analyze a more complex banking scenario. This scenario explains the use of all the techniques mentioned earlier in a fictional banking environment, involving the backend database of the bank, the browser-based Banking client portal, and a real third-party financial Web service.