questino for ajax
 

how much javascript do i need to know in order to learn ajax?

i understand the basics like

declaring variables
functions
arrays
if,while,for,foreach loops

and xml shouldnt be too hard to learn.

you need to know basic knowledge of javascript.

Ajax is basically loading a page into a variable, all you need to do is know how to use that variable in to get certain things off the page.

Like one thing you might need to know is:
document.createElement

To store the loaded page, and use js to loop through what ever your trying to grab.

Ajax is pretty easy to learn once you learn how to do server requests.

Ajax Tutorial - Tutorial

You don't need Javascript to do AJAX, just like you don't need to know XML. You can do basic AJAX functions with just one language. The only problem is, the AJAX stuff is the most advanced part of that language :3.

Prototype makes AJAX very simple!

I'm a jQuery man (jQuery: The Write Less, Do More, JavaScript Library)

Example of hitting a script with jQuery:

I can't stand jQuery. I find its syntax to be very gross. Prototype, on the other hand, is very simple and pretty straight-forward. And to answer the initial question, Ajax IS javascript mainly, so...I'd say it would help having a good knowledge of JS before delving into Ajax.