Microsoft on Tuesday released the final version of ASP.NET AJAX 1.0, the company's Web development toolkit for Asynchronous JavaScript. The software integrates with the .NET Framework 3.0 and the resulting code is browser independent.

The company's goal was to develop a series of small libraries that a browser can load into memory as necessary -- rather than loading one huge library -- that will give Web developers the framework for implementing on-page controls. These controls provide animated functionality, and more importantly, can be loaded with variable amounts of new content as necessary by resuming HTTP contact with the Web server; thus, the "asynchronous" aspect of the language.

The way AJAX (from Microsoft, Google and others) could fundamentally change the nature of Web site design is by enabling, for the first time, a Web site's entire content, regardless of size or breadth, to be delivered through a single page. The entire page would not need to be loaded into the browser beforehand; instead, the browser simply collects resources and data from the server as the user requests them. For at least some sites, the entire notion of "page hierarchy" could end here.

New in the 1.0 release is a Microsoft Reference License for the ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions, the core component of ASP.NET AJAX 1.0. This will enable developers to view the source code behind the technology, which should aid in debugging, maintenance and interoperability, Microsoft says.

The first baby steps Microsoft took into the waters of AJAX came last year with the release of the "Atlas" Community Technology Preview, which was based mostly on a single library. Since that time, the company decided that the functionality set for ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 would be more limited.

When Beta 1 was released, the company chose to divide its AJAX components into two packages: one which it would officially support, and a second that would represent a continual development path for features that could be incorporated into future official releases. This second package was given a rather financial-sounding name for Beta 2, released in November: "ASP.NET AJAX 2.0 Futures CTP."