An Architectural Style for Ajax

TL;DR

This paper introduces the SPIAR architectural style for AJAX web applications, focusing on enhancing interactivity and development ease through specific design principles and component-based architecture.

Contribution

It presents the SPIAR architectural style, detailing its guiding principles, constraints, and how it improves AJAX application interactivity and development.

Findings

SPIAR emphasizes user interface component development.

It introduces intermediary delta-communication between client and server.

The style addresses open issues in AJAX frameworks.

Abstract

A new breed of web application, dubbed AJAX, is emerging in response to a limited degree of interactivity in large-grain stateless Web interactions. At the heart of this new approach lies a single page interaction model that facilitates rich interactivity. We have studied and experimented with several AJAX frameworks trying to understand their architectural properties. In this paper, we summarize three of these frameworks and examine their properties and introduce the SPIAR architectural style. We describe the guiding software engineering principles and the constraints chosen to induce the desired properties. The style emphasizes user interface component development, and intermediary delta-communication between client/server components, to improve user interactivity and ease of development. In addition, we use the concepts and principles to discuss various open issues in AJAX frameworks and application development.