Contents
Introduction
Brief history of XMLHttpRequest
XMLHttpRequest limitations
AJAX 2: What is XMLHttpRequest Level 2?
Conclusions
Introduction
For those that may still not be familiar, XMLHttpRequest is a JavaScript object that can send arbitrary HTTP requests from the user browser to a Web server in order to submit or retrieve information in the background.
It is often used to develop the so called AJAX Web applications, i.e. applications that interact with Web servers in a faster way, as they usually exchange information with the Web server without having to load a new page in the browser.
Brief history of XMLHttpRequest
The XMLHttpRequest was introduced by Microsoft in 1999 as part of the Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 product. The intention was to provide an highly interactive user interface similar to the Microsoft Outlook program but being solely based on a Web browser. That Web based interface was named OWA - Outlook Web Access.
The idea had a great success and the XMLHttpRequest object started being bundled in Internet Explorer 5 as part of a ActiveX object named MSXML.
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