Since Alex has been pushing me towards the XMLHttpRequest object for what seems like years, why is the hidden IFRAME still a favorite?

In Mapping Google, Joel Webber proceeds to dissect the new Google Maps. Interesting quote:

The first thing I noticed is that it doesn’t quite work like GMail. Whereas GMail uses XMLHttp to make calls back to the server, Google Maps uses a hidden IFrame. Each method has its benefits, as I’ll discuss below, but this difference of approach does seem to imply that it may not be the same team doing the work.

Not only a different team is implied, but also some sort of ‘holding on to what works’. This is fine, until 6 years down the road, we realize we still have to support it.

I guess I shouldn’t talk so much, since I have used both approaches, heck I have even used the brain-dead ‘hold the http connection open and send more javascript’ approach, and I can assure you that particular approach just doesn’t scale.

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