Book Review: Build Your Own Ajax Web Applications
October 2, 2006
A very interesting book for experienced programmers.
I’ve reviewed several AJAX books and each has their own slant on the subject. Build Your Own AJAX Web Applications is the first that actually got me to think of AJAX based applications as a replacement for the traditional desktop applications.
… You’d figure I would have clued into this reality before, but for some reason, it only clicked while reading chapter 2!
WHO IS THIS BOOK FOR
Clearly you need to have a web programming background to understand this book. If you’re shaky with programming and object oriented programming is a great mystery to you, then you might find aspects of this book challenging.
On the flip side, if you want a refined and advanced approach to injecting AJAX into your web work, and you are comfortable with Javascript and a server-side language like PHP, then this is a very good book.
TOPICS COVERED
- An overview of the basic technologies you’ll need to use to build Ajax applications.
- Understand the XMLHttpRequest object, the core of Ajax applications.
- Build a cross-browser XMLHttpRequest wrapper that you can use in all of your Ajax projects – using OO Javascript.
- Build an Ajax application site monitor that works in real time.
- Learn how to use Ajax without breaking older browsers or causing accessibility issues.
- Fix the “Back button” problem.
- Use JSON, YAML, and XML to communicate with the server.
- Create an Ajax search application that pulls data from Amazon, del.icio.us, and Google.
.. yes, I got this list from amazon, but why reinvent the wheel!
MY CONCLUSION
I like the fact that the book does a good job of teaching AJAX while not getting bogged down in useless code and text – the book is concise, to the point and thin.
Get the book.
Stefan Mischook
