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Ajax Bible
vBulletin Book Store > vBulletin books beginning with A
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Ajax Bible |
Author: Steve, Ph.D. Holzner
Published: 2007-04-02 |
List price: $39.99
Our price: $26.39
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Usually ships in 24 hours
As of: December 02nd, 2008 03:37:45 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Pretty Good Book
I just made it to chapter five and I am understanding the topic of AJAX pretty well. I have other AJAX books but they failed to explain a few imporant topics or they did it poorly.
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br /This book is pretty easy to follow. I recommend it!
 I expected more
This book convers very well a lot of subjects on Ajax, and a lot it doesn't.
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br /There are two chapters focused on PHP. These are on the Parte IV, named Advanced Ajax. But in this two chapters, if you try to find Ajax, you won't get Anything!!!
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br /This book is not aimed for advanced or experts of Ajax, it's just for the beginner and maybe intermediate.
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br /If your're searching a book for some advanced Ajax techniques. GET ANOTHER BOOK!!
 A Bible in Size Only
This book is way bigger than it needs to be. The code examples take up enormous amounts of space. When stepping through an example, the entire example code is (usually) repeated with the new line under discussion added. Even the simplest example takes up pages of text. Every new example gets the cross-browser code for obtaining an XMLhttprequest object. Do we really need that repeated for each example?
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br /The examples are mostly very simple, usually replacing one line of text with another. Then there's the screenshots. How informative is it to see two entire Internet Explorer windows, complete with toolbars, and a tiny speck of text that changes to before the Ajax call to an after Ajax call? The coverage of client and server-side libraries is so minimal and the examples so simple that the author could have just listed what libraries are available.
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br /Most of the book has nothing to do with Ajax. There are chapters on DOM, javascript, CSS but I can't understand who their target audience is. For instance, if you don't know anything about DOM, you won't learn enough to be useful. If you do know some (even a little), you won't learn anything at all.
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br /The last five chapters are the advanced Ajax section. The first three are an introduction to PHP. Really. How to declare a variable. How to make a comment. No Ajax at all. Again, if you don't know PHP, you're better off getting a better book. If you think the last two chapters might build on this tutorial of PHP, you're mistaken. No more PHP. On to java server pages, javabeans, and an odd little ending with two page discussion of Model-View-Controller. Again, if you don't know JSP, you won't understand what's going on. If you do, you won't learn anything.
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br /The book is a nice introduction to Ajax, it just contains way to much filler and never does anything in any depth.
 Solid beginning to end coverage of Ajax...
Finding a book on Ajax isn't too hard any more. Finding one that covers beginning to advanced Ajax (and does it well) is another story. Steve Holzner has put his entry into the field with Ajax Bible. This is one of the better titles out there, and there's something to appeal to all levels of developers.
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br /Contents:
br /Part 1 - Fundamental Ajax: Essential Ajax; Know Your JavaScript; Creating Ajax Applications; Serious Ajax Programming
br /Part 2 - Ajax In Depth: Introducing Ajax Frameworks; More Advanced Ajax Frameworks; Using Server-Side Ajax Frameworks
br /Part 3 - Ajax and the DOM, XML, CSS, and Dynamic HTML: The DOM and Event Handling; XML and Ajax; Cascading Style Sheets and Ajax; Dynamic HTML and Ajax
br /Part 4 - Advanced Ajax: Introducing Ajax and PHP; PHP - Functions and HTML Controls; Handling User Input in PHP; Ajax and Security; Filters, MVC, and Ajax
br /Index
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br /Holzner's written over 100 technology books, so I've come to expect a high level of writing from him. He definitely delivers here. Part 1 gives you all the information you need to start writing an Ajax-enabled application. The JavaScript chapter is designed to give you enough background if you've never worked with Ajax before, but not so lengthy as to dominate the entire book. The Serious Ajax Programming chapter will appeal to readers who have done some Ajax coding already, covering such subjects as multiple XMLHttpRequest objects and calling other domains. Part 2 gets into the whole topic of frameworks and how they can save you time and effort in your coding projects. No need to reinvent the wheel if someone else already has done that. Part 3 covers more of how you can take the returned data from the Ajax call and format your web page to display and use that data. And finally, Part 4 goes into some fairly advanced topics that won't mean much to the beginner, but might be exactly what the advanced developer needs.
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br /What I especially liked are Holzner's code examples. In many books, you get a code example all at once. The following writing then tries to explain whatever was just shown. That's usually OK, but sometimes longer code snippets can get confusing. Holzner "builds" the code alongside the writing. So you first get the start and end of the function along with the explanation. Then you get that code along with a new bold section that explains the next step. This pattern is repeated until the entire code snippet is built. While some might feel that it pads the book with redundant pages of code, I prefer it as you see the specific part of the code being discussed without getting confused about additional lines you don't yet understand.
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br /If there was a need for me to recommend a book on Ajax to someone without knowing their background, this would be a very safe bet. Beginners will get exactly what they need, and intermediate/advanced readers will find stuff that they don't know. Nice job...
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Another winner - a fine AJAX ontribution
If you're alive and into computer books, you've got to know the name Holzner. The fellow has got a talent for putting together a book that is always (at least the ones I read) at the top of the heap in terms of readability and content. He does it again in this book. This book is an enhanced version of his Ajax For Dummies, a very good and lower level book. There's more in it.
br /AJAX for the un-initiated (are they out there ?) is the name given to the technique of using a bunch of already true and tried components, Javascript, XML, dynamic HTML, and CSS and the XMLHttpRequest object to obtain some rather dramatic effects toward creating websites that perform in a crisp way.
br /As in snap, crackle and pop. AJAX is not a language, it is not a new technology. It is a novel way of using the above mentioned already existing stuff in a very clever way. As such, you need to learn an awful lot of stuff and to learn how it all hangs together. And this is where the author excels. He has already written other books where this stuff is described. He brings it into this book from scratch and does a very good job of tying it all up into a nice neat package. The book is self-contained. It is a very good book for the beginner and the more advanced reader will find some interesting reading too.
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