NYCPHP Meetup

[Gary Mort]

tedd wrote:
> Another way of asking this question is, "Besides not triggering a 
> refresh, what can ajax do that php can not?"
>

PHP cannot control the browser presentation, it can merely provide 
static information to the browser.
Javascript can control the browser presentation, and it can be generated 
by PHP
AJAX merely allows you to combine the functionality of javascript with 
the dynamic data access of PHP(or any other CGI script) in order to put 
the two together in a more dynamic fashion.  It has sparked some 
innovations in presenting and packaging data generated by CGI that than 
make the whole thing reusable(for example, frameworks which pull all the 
dynamic data down to the server and then allow one to work offline and 
then sync up to the server.  Of course, the curmudgeon in me would say 
"well, besides using a web browser, what can this do that a Lotus Notes 
client can't? " :-0 and the answer is it can be done without charging 
hundreds of dollars per user.)

I see web browser applications slowly approaching the full power of a 
Notes Application from over 5 years ago.  But they do it in a cross 
platform, affordable manner.  Still, with notes I knew precisely what 
functions would work on every system with a notes client plus had 
certain levels of security unavailable with a browser without a lot of 
work, so it has it's place in the corporate environment.