[Pdx-pm] Making web pages that display "working on your request"

[Michael G Schwern]

Yep, that's Ajax all right.  Most Javascript frameworks handle this for you.
I like Prototype myself as it small enough for me to wrap my brain around.
http://www.prototypejs.org/learn/introduction-to-ajax


Ajax is, essentially:
1) A bit of Javascript to get an HTML fragment from a URL
2) A bit of CGI to return that HTML fragment
3) A bit of Javascript to replace a hunk of the page (usually a <div>) with
the new fragment.

Prototype handles 1 and 3 for you.  2 you know how to do.