Coming Up Next

Let's be blunt: Today's web sites focus primarily on AJAX, not forms. AJAX is the technology where a single web page, using JavaScript, can communicate with the server directly, without reloading the page.

Facebook is a great example of an AJAX Web application. When you update your status on Facebook, you don't submit a form, sending the variables to the Facebook server, and getting an entire new page back. Instead, when you click the button, some JavaScript sends the information to the servers, and then updates the page itself, all without reloading the page.

In the next installment, we'll cover a few more basics of PHP, and shortly thereafter move onto how you can create modern AJAX-powered web sites with PHP (since that's probably what you want to build anyway).

Have fun!