“These two are very different technologies,” explains Ron Schmelzer, senior analyst with ZapThink LLC. “Ajax is focused on the presentation and interaction with users across an asychronous set of interactions. XForms is focused solely on the issue of representing data collection and exchange between clients and servers.”

And according to the analyst they can and hopefully will work together.

“For sure, people are leveraging Ajax to do XForms-like things,” he said, “but I see a better world where Ajax is XForms-enabled. Since, Ajax is not a standard, but rather a collection of different UI operations. XForms, on the other hand, is a standard. It represents how form-based information is represented, collected and exchanged. For developers to use XForms as the standard and Ajax as the implementation / representation makes a lot more sense than either one replacing the other.”

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