Useful resources for starting out with AJAX development

The field of AJAX is pretty messy today, much as any web developer will say. The moment you come up with a cool new idea for a Web-based Application, you simply hit a roadblock when you wonder, "Where do I begin?". This is the same with experienced web developers AND newbies. This is because there is no straight-forward, structured way of developing "web programs" unlike their counterparts in the Desktop applications environment.

Here are some of the resources that could save you.

Check out:
 Prototype

 Dojo
 Mootools
 ZK -- Server side, very little programming required.

Another notable feature of AJAX-based applications, or the so-called Web 2.0 apps, is the rich and responsive User Interface they provide. Coding them from scratch is simply a waste of time and "re-inventing the wheel" unless you really have a good reason to do it. So here are some useful Javascript graphic libraries that you can use which have ready-made rich and responsive components:

script.aculo.us
YUI (Yahoo! UI Library)

Hope this helps.Please reply if you liked it.