7.3. Microsoft Internet Explorer

Unlike most other web browsers, Microsoft Internet Explorer uses something called ActiveX, which is a holdover from an earlier age when object libraries where new, untried, and obscure. Because of this, ActiveX is like the bowels of a ship: Sometimes nasty things are down there. In the case of ActiveX, the ship is a spaceship named Nostromo. However, this isn't a "knock Internet Explorer" session. You'll find enough of those online today.

Unlike most cross-browser differences encountered when developing web applications, this one doesn't require a lot of code. In fact, the single line of code shown here is enough to do the deed, from an Internet Explorer point of view. This JavaScript creates in Microsoft Internet Explorer an ActiveX object that is the XMLHttpRequest object:

var objXMLHTTP = new ActiveXObject('Microsoft.XMLHTTP');

So now that we've got a potential source of XML, the big question is how to handle it.