In short:
You can develop a fairly simple way to an AJAX web application in a desktop application way.
It:
AJAX web application: a page or a bunch of pages with Javascript, etc. to communicate with the server and transfer data that changes (not all data). Think in gmail or gmaps for an example. The web is quite dynamic.
desktop-app way: using objects such as panels, text fields, events and event handlers, grids. Things you use to use in your Window application (e.g. Swing, SWT, AWT, etc.).
Also tt helps in: - javascript optimization and resource loading - ensuring application compatibility with different browsers; - easy to create new components and use them
source share