When NOT to use AJAX in web application development? [closed]

Answer 1

You should not make your service bloated with web 2.0 effects like accordion, modal/etc forms, image zoomers etc.
Use modern tech smarter (AJAX is one of them) and your users will be happy. Do not fear AJAX -- this is very good thing to make user expirience smooth. But don't do things because you like it - do them because your user need it ;)

Answer 2

You can if you wish always use AJAX and update the history state using Push State or for more compatibility use the hash with none HTML5 compliant browsers.

with this you can have your server load a page then javascript read the document.hash and resume the state of the application base on the state of the hash.

for example i got to /index.html i click into something for example a client to open the view client you can change the hash to #/view/client/{client_id}/ then if a reload or go back using the browser the hash with change and you can use the onhashchanged event to capture it and match the sites state to the new hash then same if a favorite a certain state

Answer 3

Unless you are targeting mobile devices or other non-standard web users, you can be fairly sure that the vast majority has Javascript enabled, because most major sites (including SO) rely heavily on it.

Answer 4

I like the thought of coding your application without JavaScript / Ajax and then adding it in later to enhance the UI without depriving users of functionality just because they don't have JavaScript enabled. I read about this in Pro ASP.NET MVC but I think I've seen it elsewhere in reading about unobtrusive JavaScript.

Answer 5

My experience is, we should use ajax after it works without it. For a couple of reasons. First, if something breaks in the ajax, and you don't have it working without it, the site simply doesn't work. For example, a product list with pagination. It should work with the links alone, then use ajax when possible. Second, for site indexing and accessibility. If it works without ajax, it's better.

And it's easier to break something (even if only for a few moments). A bad piece of code, an uncaught exception, an external library not loaded, a blocking browser extension,...

After everything works without ajax, its quite easier to add ajax. Just have the ajax catch the action, add ajax=1 and when returning the result, return only what you need if ajax=1, otherwise return everything. In the product list example, I would only return the products and pagination html, and add to the correct div. If ajax stops working, the whole page is loaded and the customer sees the second page as it loads.

Ajax adds a lot of value to UX. If done right, the user gets a great feel when using the site, and better data usage because it doesn't load the whole page everytime.

But the question being "when not to use ajax", I would say, you should always count on it to improve UX but not rely on it for the site to work (as other users also mentioned). And nowadays we need both, great code and great user experience.

Answer 6

My practice is to use two main pages, let's say index.py and ajax.py. First one is responsible for generating full website, and is default target of forms. Other one generates only output specific for adequate ajax query. Logic behind both of them is the same, only the method of generating output is a bit different. In jquery I simply change action parameter when sending a request. It works both with and without ajax, although long time have I not seen someone with disabled js and ajax.