Well it looks like theres some push behind the AJAX naming now. I believe it stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and translates into this easy to understand list.
- standards-based presentation using XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS);
- dynamic display and interaction using the Document Object Model;
- data interchange and manipulation using XML and XSLT;
- asynchronous data retrieval using XMLHttpRequest;
- and JavaScript binding everything together.
I couldnt give a crap what its called but certainly the way to do rich interaction in the browser without using Flash or anything non standard. Its all interesting because about 3-5 years ago Standard CSS and XHTML was becoming accepted in the modern browsers, and a standard browser DOM or javascript was along way off. Now it seems were hitting the point of where you can use standard javascript across all modern browsers. Which is indeed a good step forward.
Sam Ruby considers Ajax harmful but seems to have more a problem with bad use of it. Paul vents his frustration with others on the naming of Ajax. Dare covers the whole Ajax issue once and for all
