Ajax - the science behind those "cool" webapps

Have you noticed the "coolness" about the new web applications like Gmail, Google Suggest, Google Maps etc? That is how responsive they are? Well its all because of the new trend called Ajax (Asynchronous Javascript + X(HT)ML). Although the technology has beed around for ages but the tools (browsers, API's, libraries etc.) have recently matured enough to take the challenge.

This site descibes the technologies involved:

Ajax incorporates:

• standards-based presentation using XHTML and 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.

JSON-RPC-Java is a related Java library for the this magic and here is the slashdot article.