I ran into, what turned out to be, a really simple problem yesterday trying to get an Ajax request to post without refreshing the entire view. Turns out I simply forgot to include jquery.unobtrusive -- fixed.
However, the person who answered also told me to drop the "obsolete" Ajax.BeginForm() and use jQuery.Ajax(). This was news to me, so I did some digging.
I came up with:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8782697/are-microsoftajax-js-microsoftmvcajax-js-and-microsoftmvcvalidation-js-obsolete
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3840967/how-to-update-a-div-with-ajax-beginform-and-execute-a-javascript-function
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5605556/is-ajax-beginform-obsolete
Now, I noticed these are always referencing MVC versions 3 and below. I have read books since these questions have been published (for instance, Professional MVC5 (c)2014), and they still use MS's Ajax helper functions.
I would also like to get out of the way: I feel comfortable using MS's Ajax helpers (even though like an idiot I forget relative JS files), and I'm independent so my stubbornness will effect nobody.
So, my question really is: are these helpers in fact obsolete? Was there a time they might have not been as useful and Microsoft made them more useful for developers? Or, is this a case of developers pushing their personal preferences on
the rest of the community?