AJAXImpact on TelecomBy: Jose de Castro

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So what is AJAX?• Asynchronous JavaScript and XML

– Refers to a programming model in which the user Interface is driven by data instead of “pages”

– DOM manipulation is used to update UI components– Sites and applications are more responsive

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Technical Impact of AJAX on the Web• Advantages

– Application skeleton only downloaded once– Can result in significant reduction in bandwidth– Asynchronous requests allow browser to be more responsive– Page transitions are eliminated resulting in less "flicker"

• Disadvantages– Applications become more chatty– Harder to develop– Breaks the back button– Impacts “bookmarkability”

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Technical Impact of AJAX on Telecom• Advantages

– Application skeleton only downloaded once– Can result in significant reduction in bandwidth– Asynchronous requests allow browser to be more responsive– Page transitions are eliminated resulting in less "flicker"

• Disadvantages– Applications become more chatty– Harder to develop– Breaks the back button– Impacts “bookmarkability”

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Are people doing this today?

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Sure, Voice Browsers have needs too!• VoiceXML and CCXML engines are browsers• Governed by the W3C• Based on proven web standards/techniques

– Open protocols (HTTP, SSL)– Request-response model– HTTP 1.1 Caching– Intelligent resource pre-fetching

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VoiceXML• Used to create interactive Voice Dialogs• VoiceXML : Speech :: HTML : Web• AJAX-style development via the <data> element• Uses ECMAScript as it's primary scripting language

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Demo

Demo: “Score!”

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Demo Overview• What did we cover?

– VUI downloaded once per call instead of once per lookup – Scores loaded “on-the-fly” using a custom Web Service– Audio files are cached via standard HTTP caching headers

• Wait, but was that asynchronous?– No, VoiceXML is effectively a procedural language– To do true AJAX we need an event/callback model

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Enter CCXML...• A complementary standard to VoiceXML• Completely asynchronous!• Allows interaction with low level signaling (i.e. SIP)• A container for VoiceXML Dialogs• Loves ECMAScript!

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* Thanks to the ITP Program at NYU for the idea: http://itp.nyu.edu/itp/

Demo

Demo: “Your clicks are important to us”

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Demo Overview• What did we cover?

– Asynchronous event processing– CCXML was able to send and receive messages from an external source– We leveraged several open source JavaScript libraries in a way it’s authors

may have never imagined!

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But don’t stop there!• AJAX is not just about performance!

– The emergence of AJAX brought on a landslide of innovation that has fundamentally changed the way we approach software delivery (e.g. Software as a Service)

– AJAX requires that developers separate their UI from the underlying data; maximizing code reuse

– Massive online social networks and countless Internet superstars owe their beginnings to this new development paradigm

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Social Impact of AJAX• Service Oriented Architectures (SOA)• Mass adoption Open Standards• Free services funded by advertising• Faster ECMAScript Engines!!!

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Q&A