Ajax in Action

by Dave Crane, Eric Pascarello, Darren James

Val's Blog "A tremendously useful field guide specifically written for developers down in the trenches...waiting for the killer solution..."

Web users are getting tired of the traditional web experience. They get frustrated losing their scroll position; they get annoyed waiting for refresh; they struggle to reorient themselves on every new page. And the list goes on. With asynchronous JavaScript and XML, known as "Ajax," you can give them a better experience. Once users have experienced an Ajax interface, they hate to go back. Ajax is new way of thinking that can result in a flowing and intuitive interaction with the user.

Ajax in Action helps you implement that thinking--it explains how to distribute the application between the client and the server ( use a "nested MVC" design) while retaining the integrity of the system. You will learn how to ensure your app is flexible and maintainable, and how good, structured design can help avoid problems like browser incompatibilities. Along the way it helps you unlearn many old coding habits. Above all, it opens your mind to the many advantages gained by placing much of the processing in the browser. If you are a web developer who has prior experience with web technologies, this book is for you.

Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.

Genres: Programming, Software, Technology, Computers, Computer Science, Reference

680 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 2005

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like this book was very good when it was first written a few years ago. It really does a good job explaining how Ajax works and the nuts and bolts behind the Ajax libraries that are currently out there. I feel like this book doesn't explain the Ajax libraries well enough, and just glosses over the fact that they exist. It does show some good examples of how Ajax can be used (including Google Suggest and other Type-Ahead functionality).

I really only made it a little over half way through this book, simply because after the half-way point, it begins talking about building a lot of the features that the current libraries take care of for you, and I didn't see myself ever needing to implement some of my own Ajax securities and other features.

Overall, this book did a great job at explaining Ajax to someone who has no idea what it is or how to use it. It also does a good job at explaining what the libraries do behind the scenes. However, it gets bogged down on a lot of unimportant details and spends too much time creating their own Ajax "library". I would use this book more as a reference than as a definitive guide and tutorial.

[Tadas Talaikis · Rating 3 out of 5]

It only proves how I hate Javascript. Fancy, useless, resources consuming functions that no one (majority) really even needs them (besides several few).

[Mohammad Kermanpour]

OK

[Marty O'Brien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book. Got about 1/2 way through and now use as a reference.

[Mohamad Amir · Rating 5 out of 5]

That Was Great! A Really Useful Text Book

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good introduction to the Ajax web development technique. It's a couple of years old, so it's not quite up to date on all the latest libraries available (like JQuery), but a good book nonetheless.

[Timon Karnezos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Handful of good examples. Tries hard, but is hopelessly outdated the day it is printed, like all AJAX tech books.

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book reads as a book to prepare one to give workshops...I think I found maybe one fact that was useful, maybe.

[Carlo Mayer]

Da consultazione

[Vinci · Rating 1 out of 5]

N����o recomendo, explica muito pouco sobre pouco.