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Ajax: The Definitive Guide

By Anthony T. Holdener III
January 2008
Pages: 980
ISBN 10: 0-596-52838-8 | ISBN 13: 9780596528386
Press Release (Average of 6 Customer Reviews)

Description

Ajax builds on older technologies and techniques but reaches a tipping point where the results are new. This book gives you a boost to this next stage of web application development, teaching you how tried-and-true web standards not only make Ajax possible, but why developing with them is faster, easier and cheaper. Learn to build browser-based applications that function like desktop programs.


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Featured customer reviews

Exhaustingly Exhaustive,  November 06 2008
Submitted by Amicidavinci   [Respond | View]

This book has so many (exhaustive) comment blocks for example Javascript functions that most often the comment block is 10 times longer than the javascript code itself. Wading through it is a tremendous pain. Good code is self-documenting.

More often than not, there is not much real instruction but a lot of extremely verbose commentary about boring stuff that is (or should be) obvious to anyone who has written code for more than a year or two.

Everything that was said in this book could have been condensed into a book 1/3 the size and 1/3 the cost. I will be trying to see if B&N; will let me return it.


exhaustive.,  September 21 2008
Submitted by Muism4t   [Respond | View]

I recommend reading "Ajax The definitive guide"
if you have loads of time and if you are new to AJAX techniques. It would also be a great book to use as a reference book.

The book gives loads of information and clear examples. The book features a clear structure wherein every single part of using AJAX gets his place.

Those "loads of information" also make it a bit difficult to read , sometimes you have to read parts again to fully understand it.
^{I have to remark that English is not my native language. A Dutch review will appear shortly here (https://www.compublog.nl) .}

Exhaustive, but on-the-mark,  September 08 2008
Submitted by Anonymous Reader   [Respond | View]

Let me preface this review by saying that I have never been a fan of thick programming or computer books. If a book is 2 inches thick, I often find only 1/2 to 1 inch of it to be valuable. However, most of Ajax: The Definitive Guide seems to hit the mark. Since Ajax development is such an expansive, and rapidly changing, topic, it is perhaps a good idea to shoot for too much rather than too little information. Most developers will find this book not only a good learning guide, but also a handy reference for a wide variety of coding needs.

One thing you will notice when scanning through this book is that there is a lot of code. The author is not afraid to publish pages and pages of Ajax code for readers to consider, copy and hack up to create their own applications. Not all is useful in real-world applications, however, since some of it is not cross-browser compatible (most often failing in Internet Explorer).

The first three chapters are largely an introduction to Web technologies, and can be skipped by most developers. In Chapter 4, the author introduces the XMLHttpRequest object, the object that puts the ?asynchronous? in Ajax (an acronym for ?asynchronous JavaScript and XML?). He details how to make simple applications that pull information from server-based XML or JSON, an alternative data format well suited to Ajax. Chapter 5 deals with Document Object Model programming, a critical task that allows developers to change the look and content of Web pages that have already been rendered.

After these foundational concepts, Part 2 contains nine chapters that provide specific solutions to common Web programming needs. Readers learn the ins and outs of creating Ajaxified navigation, forms, lists, tables, frames, etc.

Part 3, called ?Ajax in Applications,? goes a step farther by showing the reader how to integrate Ajax with other applications. Chapter 16, for example, shows the reader how to incorporate Ajaxified Google search into a site and even include such dynamic features as search hinting. Other chapters in this section introduce Web services, Web APIs and even show how to create Ajax animated games.

Part 4 contains two chapters that show readers how to create more modular code, and how to create faster, more compressed code. This is critical considering the importance of speed to the user experience in Ajax.

One of the book?s shortfalls is the lack of information about the various Ajax libraries. Libraries and frameworks provide solutions to common programming needs: ready-made widgets, improved JavaScript programming notation, useful objects and easy cross-browser compatibility. The author includes a brief introduction to the libraries in chapter 4 and a reference in Appendix B. There are also mentions of the major libraries scattered throughout the chapters. However, it would be worthwhile to include at least a chapter devoted to each of the major libraries such as Dojo, Prototype and jQuery.

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Media reviews
"This book demonstrates not only how traditional web standards make Ajax possible, but also how these older technologies can give sites a modern Web 2.0 feel. "
-- Shannon Hendrickson, SciTech Book News



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