jQuery.ajax handling continue responses: "success:" vs ".done"?

success has been the traditional name of the success callback in jQuery, defined as an option in the ajax call. However, since the implementation of $.Deferreds and more sophisticated callbacks, done is the preferred way to implement success callbacks, as it can be called on any deferred.

For example, success:

$.ajax({
  url: '/',
  success: function(data) {}
});

For example, done:

$.ajax({url: '/'}).done(function(data) {});

The nice thing about done is that the return value of $.ajax is now a deferred promise that can be bound to anywhere else in your application. So let's say you want to make this ajax call from a few different places. Rather than passing in your success function as an option to the function that makes this ajax call, you can just have the function return $.ajax itself and bind your callbacks with done, fail, then, or whatever. Note that always is a callback that will run whether the request succeeds or fails. done will only be triggered on success.

For example:

function xhr_get(url) {

  return $.ajax({
    url: url,
    type: 'get',
    dataType: 'json',
    beforeSend: showLoadingImgFn
  })
  .always(function() {
    // remove loading image maybe
  })
  .fail(function() {
    // handle request failures
  });

}

xhr_get('/index').done(function(data) {
  // do stuff with index data
});

xhr_get('/id').done(function(data) {
  // do stuff with id data
});

An important benefit of this in terms of maintainability is that you've wrapped your ajax mechanism in an application-specific function. If you decide you need your $.ajax call to operate differently in the future, or you use a different ajax method, or you move away from jQuery, you only have to change the