Professional Ajax, 2nd Edition
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Professional Ajax 2nd Edition provides a developer-level tutorial of Ajax techniques, patterns, and use cases. The book begins by exploring the roots of Ajax, covering how the evolution of the web and new technologies directly led to the development of Ajax techniques. A detailed discussion of how frames, JavaScript, cookies, XML, and XMLHttp requests (XHR) related to Ajax is included. After this introduction, the book moves on to cover the implementation of specific Ajax techniques. Request brokers such as hidden frames, dynamic iframes, and XHR are compared and contrasted, explaining when one method should be used over another. To make this discussion clearer, a brief overview of HTTP requests and responses is included.
Once a basic understanding of the various request types is discussed, the book moves on to provide in-depth examples of how and when to use Ajax in a web site or web application. Different data transmission formats, including plain text, HTML, XML, and JSON are discussed for their advantages and disadvantages. Also included is a discussion on web services and how they may be used to perform Ajax techniques. Next, more complex topics are covered. A chapter introducing a request management framework explores how to manage all of the requests inside of an Ajax application. Ajax debugging techniques are also discussed. The last part of the book walks through the creation of two full-fledged Ajax web applications. The first, FooReader.NET, is an Ajax-powered RSS reader. The second, called AjaxMail, is an Ajax-enabled email system. Both of these applications incorporate many of the techniques discussed throughout the book. Professional Ajax 2nd edition is written for Web application developers looking to enhance the usability of their web sites and web applications and intermediate JavaScript developers looking to further understand the language. Readers should have familiarity with XML, XSLT, Web Services, PHP or C#, HTML, CSS. This book is not aimed at beginners without a basic understanding of the aforementioned technologies. Also, a good understanding of JavaScript is vitally important to understanding this book. Those readers without such knowledge should instead refer to books such as Beginning JavaScript, Second Edition (Wrox, 2004, ISBN: 978-0-7645-5587-9) and Professional JavaScript for Web Developers (Wrox, 2005, ISBN: 978-0-7645-7908-0). Professional Ajax 2nd edition adds nearly 200 pages of new and expanded coverage compared to the first edition. Some of the new topics covered here include:
And of course the Second Edition retains and updates the core first edition content including:
This book is also available as part of the 4-book JavaScript and Ajax Wrox Box (ISBN: 0470227818). This 4-book set includes:
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| 06-30-08 | 5 | (NA) |
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This book was very helpful to me when I was creating an executive-level presentation on AJAX because of the AJAX architecture diagram in chapter 1. More importantly, this book helped me research how to parse an RSS news feed with Atom.
But this book has much more than introductory material - it has valuable information on AJAX Principles, Who's Using AJAX, AJAX Patterns, AJAX Libraries (such as Prototype and jQuery), XML, JSON, RSS with AJAX, and AJAX Debugging Tools. In addition, this book covers something near-and-dear to me: real-world case studies at the end of the book. The authors' back-end-agnostic approach was very helpful because of the many platforms (JavaEE, .NET, Ruby, PHP, and so on) that people are using. (Review Data Last Updated: 2009-01-02 07:34:54 EST)
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| 04-15-08 | 1 | 4\6 |
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This is a great book but entirely irrelevant in todays world. The libraries and methods outlined here are outdated. With modern javascript frameworks like jQuery and Prototype there is, in my humble opinion, certainly no need to delve into the techniques of this book.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2008-07-01 15:45:04 EST)
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| 04-08-08 | 4 | (NA) |
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A concise and informative introduction to AJAX technologies. A lot of great examples, including famous ones like Google maps and Gmail make learning about AJAX relevant and fun. A short history of AJAX and how it evolved into what it is today was also nice. I was hoping for more of a reference guide, but other than that, no real complaints here.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2008-04-16 22:10:20 EST)
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| 10-03-07 | 2 | 2\6 |
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Wed 10/03/2007 5:15 pm. I'm not sure who writes these positive reviews, but an early example in the book ("The Hidden Frame Technique", starting on page 21) is obviously broken. The book shows "HiddenFrameExample1.htm" in an illustration but there is no such file in the ProAjax2ePHP.zip file downloaded from wrox. Judging by quotes on the internet probably from the first edition, I'd guess the actual file is probably GetCustomerData.php (?) but whether it is or not, that file has an obvious syntax error, missing paren in line 12 "if (is_numeric($sID) {". Of course if I were a php/ajax expert all this would be blindingly obvious; but I'm not, that's why I bought the book. I can't say I'm optimistic about the remainder of the text.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2008-04-09 09:47:26 EST)
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| 07-27-07 | 5 | 1\1 |
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I'm a senior ASP.NET/Web developer with no Ajax experience. This is my first Ajax book. I wanted to learn Ajax from the ground up, not just the Microsoft controls. Our ecommerce site is very highly trafficed and there's no forgiveness for inefficiencies. This book certainly fulfilled my expectations, but it also introduced me to some new worlds of concepts that I did not expect. For instance, the chapter on Ajax Patterns: It's a new way of thinking about Web Development. I'm very impressed with its content. The book is clearly written, the examples are excellent. I am learning a great deal from this book. Nice job guys!
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-10-03 23:19:50 EST)
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| 06-27-07 | 4 | (NA) |
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I really like this powerful handbook whick gives me detail tutorials in the field of AJAX practice.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-28 08:00:04 EST)
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| 05-07-07 | 2 | 0\10 |
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It is good if the book is in asp and with a complete project source code that covers all chapter to make easy understanding for some chapters.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-05-23 09:01:50 EST)
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| 03-23-07 | 5 | 3\4 |
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Last year (2006), I plowed through practically every available book on Ajax. This one really stands out for its excellent historical overview of how Ajax grew to exist. It also is one of the few that covers the use of hidden frames and Iframes as an Ajax technique (it has been around longer but is still used widely). The writing is outstanding. If you can only buy one Ajax book, this one should be it.
A free copy of chapter 1, "What is Ajax?" is available online at [...] (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-09 20:06:51 EST)
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| 02-20-07 | 4 | 1\3 |
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The information you need to get started on ajax programming happens very quickly in this book. The way it is presented also helps a great deal. While it still has it's dry parts, this book was actually surprisingly easy to read(meaning I wasn't falling asleep after 5 minutes of reading)
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-09 20:06:51 EST)
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| 01-04-07 | 4 | 0\27 |
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I haven't got a chance to go through all details yet, but looks pretty good so far.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-06-25 15:36:04 EST)
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| 01-03-07 | 4 | 0\14 |
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I haven't got a chance to go through all details yet, but looks pretty good so far.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-03-16 08:48:04 EST)
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| 09-04-06 | 5 | 11\12 |
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As a newcomer to Ajax, I cant comment on the coverage but it seemed reasonably comprehensive.
But the code walkthroughs were terrific - completely readable, easy to follow and sometimes even quite fun to read. I cant remember reading better code runthroughs ever. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-09 20:06:51 EST)
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| 05-18-06 | 4 | 16\21 |
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This book is very well done. It is a good introduction to AJAX and gets you up to speed quick.
CONS: 1. Not enough treatment on the server side of things in the beginning chapters. Needed a little more on serializing XML, but then how do you do that in a platform-agnostic way. I was a little disappointed that there were little or no examples in java/jsp/servlet during the Basics, Patterns and XML chapters. Could have used that. Assumes knowledge of PHP. 2. Need a little more treatment of XML/XPath/XSLT. Gets a little bit confusing when the technologies are all combined. 3. I feel like the patterns chapter could have followed the XML/XPath/XSLT chapter. 4. Maybe JSON could be left for the back of the book since the X in AJAX stands for XML. Just a thought. 5. About 65 pages of the book are just on AjaxMail, which has numerous examples, but was a lot of reading to go through on one application. PROS: 1. Not a beginner's book. Assumes knowledge of many things, like PHP, network protocols, HTTP, etc. I'm glad a lot of those details were left out and AJAX was focused on. 2. Gets you up and running with good, working examples. 3. The patterns chapter is very helpful in deciding how to use the stuff. 4. Good chapter on widgets. 5. Bang for the buck when talking about the AJAX frameworks that are out there. Fairly good treatment of JPSpan, DWR and AJAX.NET. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-06-25 15:36:04 EST)
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| 05-17-06 | 4 | 14\18 |
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This book is very well done. It is a good introduction to AJAX and gets you up to speed quick.
CONS: 1. Not enough treatment on the server side of things in the beginning chapters. Needed a little more on serializing XML, but then how do you do that in a platform-agnostic way. I was a little disappointed that there were little or no examples in java/jsp/servlet during the Basics, Patterns and XML chapters. Could have used that. Assumes knowledge of PHP. 2. Need a little more treatment of XML/XPath/XSLT. Gets a little bit confusing when the technologies are all combined. 3. I feel like the patterns chapter could have followed the XML/XPath/XSLT chapter. 4. Maybe JSON could be left for the back of the book since the X in AJAX stands for XML. Just a thought. 5. About 65 pages of the book are just on AjaxMail, which has numerous examples, but was a lot of reading to go through on one application. PROS: 1. Not a beginner's book. Assumes knowledge of many things, like PHP, network protocols, HTTP, etc. I'm glad a lot of those details were left out and AJAX was focused on. 2. Gets you up and running with good, working examples. 3. The patterns chapter is very helpful in deciding how to use the stuff. 4. Good chapter on widgets. 5. Bang for the buck when talking about the AJAX frameworks that are out there. Fairly good treatment of JPSpan, DWR and AJAX.NET. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-03-16 08:48:04 EST)
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| 05-11-06 | 5 | 9\9 |
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I found this book to be extremely informative. It is written in a clear, engaging style that makes it a pleasure to read. The examples are well constructed, relevant to real world applications, and thoroughly explained. The essential bits of code are highlighted for quick reading. The most irritating thing about web development is cross-browser support, and authors do a great job to making this less intimidating and point readers to libraries to abstract away the differences. Also covered are related JavaScript XML, XPath, XSLT support, web services, RSS/Atom.
PHP is the primary server side language used, though they chose .NET/C# for creating a web service. Microsoft's .NET web service tools are excellent, but I would have liked it if the authors had rounded this out with giving the basics of creating a web service using open source solutions. If you want to learn Ajax techniques and related technologies, this book is well worth your time and money. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-06-25 15:36:04 EST)
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| 04-30-06 | 5 | 11\14 |
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AJAX is the we technology everybody is talking abot now and its something that you should know if you are a web developer/designer now or want to be.
This book starts with a great chapter explaing how AJAX started and what it really is and how it works. Explaining how AJAX really works can be dificult for the beginner and the authors do it wonderfully. The next chapter goes into the basics of AJAX and how to create a very simple example(s) to give the user a solid foundation of how this new technology works (old technology but new way of using it actally). The next chapter goes into Patterns which describes the programming techniques used by AJAX applications. This is a crucial chapter because it is this technique that allows developers to reall understand how to develop dynamic applications with AJAX. Lots of keywords are thrown around (throttling, periodic refreshing, multi-stage downloads, pending requests, etc) and each are excplained in detailed in a very concise manner that does not confuse the reader. The next chapter focuses on the data format that is used to transfer this data (XML, XPath, XSLT) between each other using AJAX. Various techniques with the different browsers are discussed as well as workarounds if needed for the browser differences. The rest of the book covers web services, JSON, widgets, andhte different frameworks that are available to use. A very complete AJAX book that will get any reader ready to se AJAX in their web development work. A must by... (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-03-16 08:48:04 EST)
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