Ajax in Action

Book Description

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 (hint: 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.

Customer Reviews:

Shines over the rest ..........2007-04-23

Somehow I got hold of my first book on AJAX: Head Rush Ajax (Head First) and sure it gave me an intro to XMLHttpRequest - but that's all it did. I browsed through the informal/conversational writings of the book in one evening. And wondered, is there all to it? The current web-world is spinning around Web2.0 and AJAX technology - there must be more than that. Then I went back to the store and picked this book up - I am glad I did. It covers many more areas that an AJAX programmer must equip himself/herself, topics relating to MVC pattern, working with the server side programs and performance, security, as well as the basic topic: building standalone RIA using CSS, DOM and DHTML.

This one definitely shines over the rest on the topic, however, for a hands-on programmer (that's me), I would appreciate more code samples will help.

Good At What it Does--But Not About AJAX.......2007-04-04

Finally, I am so happy to see what some other reviewers say. This book is not really that much about AJAX. I feel that I have wasted my AJAX budget. Sure, there is lots of valuable stuff here but the percentage of this book that is about AJAX proper.
I would say that 5 of the 13 chapters are about AJAX but that of course means that 8 are not at all about AJAX. At the same time, I got "Pragmatic AJAX" by the always funny Ben Galbraith. If you need to focus on AJAX--read Pragmatic AJAX.

Ajax in Action.......2007-03-12

It does more than introduce ajax to the reader. It also covers a little bit of programming methodology and some things to keep in mind when writing even a simple application. Overall it is a good book, but not if you are new to programming and especially if you are new to JavaScript.

It's About Web Architecture... Buy it for that reason.......2007-03-05

I also will agree with the comment: "Principles of Web architecture and design... and a few words about Ajax". However, I find it to be an incredible book. It goes in depth about the Model View Controller, Design Patterns, and Refactoring. All terms that I did not know in depth. I actually skipped over a lot of the how-to AJAX stuff and read about the design theories. I can't wait to read it again.

The Appendix on how JavaScript works is worth the price of the book alone. NOW I understand how that crazy prototype works.

Incorrectly named and promoted........2007-02-27

I agree with one of the reviewers (D. Klebanov) who suggested to re-name this book to "Principles of Web architecture and design... and a few words about Ajax"

I wanted a book that focuses strictly on Ajax functionality. This book is often vague and verbose and lacks unity.

It feels like the Authors took the Ajax concept and stretched it onto the set of many different topics. Some topics are pertinent to Ajax others are just subtly related.

I did find a lot of useful information in this book, but for the most part those things had nothing to do with Ajax. Just general strategies of web development. So I give it 2 stars because it is well written, although rather verbose. But really this is like ordering an apple and getting an orange and then trying to write a review on how oranges are also good.

Average customer rating:

Top-notch tome
Excellent
Basic libraries coverage with a good example application.

Prototype and Scriptaculous in Action
Dave Crane , Bear Bibeault , and Tom Locke
Manufacturer: Manning Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1933988037

Book Description

Prototype and Scriptaculous are libraries that extend standard Ajax. They make it easier to program Ajax and provide powerful features like drag and drop and animation. In this book, developers learn by playing and see how the libraries work in the real world.

As experience with Ajax increases, developers want the standard Ajax capabilities they repeatedly use to be preprogrammed for them--and that's exactly what Ajax libraries do for them. They reduce the pain of handling cross-browser inconsistencies, they add useful language features, and provide sophisticated functionality. Of these, Prototype is the most popular JavaScript and Ajax framework for low-level user interface features such as animation, drag and drop, and pre-built widgets. Together, they free the developer up to concentrate on building the application. They make a rich user experience easy to achieve.

This book guides the reader through the Prototype and Scriptaculous libraries feature-by-feature. In just 350 pages, readers will find over 100 small working examples to help them explore the libraries. As well, they will develop a web-based image gallery that teacher them how to use Prototype and Scriptaculous in the real-world.

Customer Reviews:

Top-notch tome.......2007-06-25

Javascript has exploded onto the web development scene in the last few years, and powers much of the web 2.0 and Ajax revolution. Every web developer now needs to know how to do common Ajax tasks. Thankfully, Prototype and Scriptaculous In Action makes it both easy and enjoyable.

This is a comprehensive book. The size (510 pages) was initially intimidating, but Prototype and Scriptaculous In Action is exceedingly well written and a genuine pleasure to read. The thorough and thoughtful organization of the book provides some real structure to the discussion, making complex subjects easily digestible. This is the defacto bible of Prototype and Scriptaculous, and these days I turn to this book more than anything else on my shelf.

The book is divided up into four multi-chapter parts, any of which could stand on it's own as a definitive guide. The chapters are full of useful examples, and there's strong emphasis given to migrating existing sites to Prototype and Scriptaculous, which is a major plus. You could turn to any section of the book and immediately see how to inject some new behavior into your existing application, but if you take the time to read from cover-to-cover you'll be rewarded with some deep understanding of both the libraries and Javascript itself.

I'll summarize the four parts of the book:

Part 1, Getting Started, introduces the Prototype and Scriptaculous libraries, focusing heavily on Prototype and Ajax. There's a lot of information on re-designing an existing site for Ajax. Two full chapters are devoted to Prototype's Ajax features. You can get up and running VERY quickly after glancing through these chapters. There's also a lot of depth, and consideration is given to the pervasive effects Ajax has on architectural issues and the new ways that an application will have to manage HTTP traffic.

Part 2, Scriptaculous Quickly, covers effects, controls and drag-n-drop. This is hands-down the best Scriptaculous documentation currently available, anywhere. The core effects are explored and tweaked, and there's lot of very practical examples demonstrating some of the niftiest stuff, like running effects in parallel versus sequentially. And the drag-and-drop coverage is incredibly clear, making it easy, almost trivial, to implement. The Scriptaculous coverage is indispensable, and you'll return to it again and again if you implement Scriptaculous-enabled pages.

Part 3, Prototype in Depth, explores Prototype's Javascript-oriented features. There's a fantastic chapter on functions contexts, and the discussion of closures is one of the best I've seen. There's a lot of information about Javascript fundamentals, and how Prototype can be used to implement inheritance, address arrays, and manipulate the DOM in the browser.

And finally, Part 4 Advanced Topics, has two unrelated chapters. The first chapter overhauls an example app, giving it a Prototype and Scriptaculous makeover. The last chapter is about integration with Ruby on Rails. Prototype was initially written as the Ajax interface to Rails, so there's some strong integration.

As a long-time enterprise web developer, dealing with Javascript has always been a chore. But now I actually (gasp) look forward to tasks that involve Javascript. I'm a convert, and I have Prototype and Scriptaculous in Action to thank.

Excellent.......2007-05-22

I wrote a longer review that Amazon has apparently lost. Oh well. This is an excellent book, very well written. The authors are the rarest kind of technical author: they can actually construct prose that is pleasant to read, not deadly boring, but which works well as a reference book later. The book's organized thoughtfully--it's certainly much more than just an API reference. There's also quite a lot of general advanced Javascript information here, too.

There's at least one other book on these libraries in production from Pragmatic Programmers. If you're considering that, I strongly suggest downloading the sample chapters of both books and comparing. The Crane book is much more appealing to me (not to mention it's available now, not in six months).

Basic libraries coverage with a good example application........2007-04-19

This book lacked detailed coverage of the programming techniques and advanced topics of prototype and scriptaculous. The authors covered the basics by discussing only the API's of the libraries (more attention was given to scriptaculous API's, even though its usage is obvious and prototype API's are more extensive). With 500 pages and the libraries as the title, I expected details about the inner workings of the API's and discussions about its usages/ applications. Instead, 150 pages were devoted to verbose repetitive coverage of scriptaculous' API, which could easily have fitted into 50 pages at most. ALL of the info on scriptaculous could easily have been read online at its wiki site - the book provided no further insight (ch. 5 is especially useless)! Prototype's coverage was decent, but lacked details on several parts of its API. Although prototype and scriptaculous are tightly integrated with Rails, there was only 1 chapter devoted to its discussion, which served more like an overview than a usage guide. Based on content on the libraries alone, I would give this book 3 stars. However, if you're in need of an example application, then it may deserve 4 stars. This book provides a good example of applying prototype's ajax and scriptaculous web 2.0 techniques to a photo gallery website. It shows the advantages these libraries have over plain javascript and dhtml. The extra 100 pages wasted on scriptaculous would better serve Rails' RJS templates or a more complete/ thorough discussion of prototype. Of course it can be argued that the book is not titled, "Prototype, Scriptaculous, and Rails in Action," but it should be.

Average customer rating:

Practical book for working programmers.
Love the recipie format
Essential once you start building your first app
Will reach both programmers and serious programming libraries.
A fine collection of problems and solutions

Rails Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly))
Rob Orsini
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
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ASIN: 0596527314

Book Description

Rails Cookbook is packed with the solutions you need to be a proficient developer with Rails, the leading framework for building the new generation of Web 2.0 applications. Recipes range from the basics, like installing Rails and setting up your development environment, to the latest techniques, such as developing RESTful web services.

With applications that are code light, feature-full and built to scale quickly, Rails has revolutionized web development. The Rails Cookbook addresses scores of real-world challenges; each one includes a tested solution, plus a discussion of how and why it works, so that you can adapt the techniques to similar situations. Topics include:

Modeling data with the ActiveRecord library
Setting up views with ActionView and RHTML templates
Building your application's logic into ActionController
Testing and debugging your Rails application
Building responsive web applications using JavaScript and Ajax
Ensuring that your application is security and performs well
Deploying your application with Mongrel and Apache
Using Capistrano to automate deployment
Using the many Rails plugins
Working with graphics

Whether you're new to Rails or an experienced developer, you'll discover ways to test, debug and secure your applications, incorporate Ajax, use caching to improve performance, and put your application into production. Want to get ahead of the Web 2.0 curve? This valuable cookbook will save you hundreds of hours when developing applications with Rails.

Customer Reviews:

Practical book for working programmers........2007-08-27

The "Rails Cookbook" is a very useful book for the working programmer.

Programming is all about solving problems, and that is exactly what this book is about. Each "Recipe" contains the problem, the solution and a discussion about the solution. They are concise without being too vague to be useful.

The book contains almost 200 of these problems / solutions.

This probably wouldn't be a good introduction to the language or the framework, but if you already are familiar with both - this book is a very valuable tool to help you get your work done.

Love the recipie format.......2007-06-20

Now that I've encountered a few recipies books, I have to admit I'm in love with the format. I proves very practical and much easier to use.

Essential once you start building your first app.......2007-06-08

Probably my most worn RoR book. It doesn't teach you Ruby or Rails since it's really a how-to book. I learned Ruby and Rails from other books but once I set out to build an app, I often thought to myself "now I remember reading about this somewhere, I just can't remember the syntax." Instead of digging through my other books, I thumbed through the TOC and quickly found a refresher. Well worth your money and saves you a lot of time spent on google or searching for solutions in other books.

Will reach both programmers and serious programming libraries........2007-05-08

Web programmers and practicing developers working with Rails will want this solution-oriented guide to building web 2.0 applications - a guide packed with recipes for success from the basics of installing and using Rails to the latest applications. Learn how to work with an application's logic, how to test and debit a Rails application, and use Rails plug-ins with RAILS COOKBOOK: APPLICATIONS FOR RAPID WEB DEVELOPMENT WITH RUBY, which covers version 1.2 and will reach both programmers and serious programming libraries.

A fine collection of problems and solutions.......2007-04-05

When reading the foreword of Rails Cookbook I felt a strong kinship with Zed Shaw, I too have fond memories of the first edition of Perl Cookbook and the way I relied on it once I'd taken the training wheels off. Since that one I have relied on several of the O'Reilly Cookbook series. It is only when I discard the early tutorial and dive in the deep end with a "cookbook" on my desk that I really start to learn proficiency.

I felt timorous and unsure when I finished "Agile Web Development with Rails", a marvelous tutorial that introduced me to my first real web development framework (I must have enjoyed it, I just bought the second edition). Since I have volunteered to develop a fairly large and complex web application in Rails I awaited the arrival of my copy of Rails Cookbook with hopeful anticipation and bated breath.

Rob Orsini, his fellow contributors (15 in all) and the team at O'Reilly have once again delivered. Compared to the previous titles in the series I've owned "Rails Cookbook" seems to have fewer recipes but as it is tackling an entire application framework and some serious issues, some of the solutions and discussions run a lot longer. The book is targeted at programmers who know something about web development but are early in their use of Rails, though it should be helpful to all Rails developers.

The book starts with tackling issues of installation and getting development tools installed in the first two chapters. Despite already deploying a couple of simple Rails apps I found that there was the odd useful tip in these chapters. The book then covers each of the three main sections of Rails; Active Record, Action View and Action Controller. The rest of the book goes on with large chapters on testing, Javascript, debugging, performance and hosting and deployment. Along the way it also covers REST, Action Mailer, security, plug-ins and graphics.

The extremely large section on Active Record was to me the most useful. I seem to spend an inordinate percentage of my Rails coding time with Active Record and it contains a large part of Rails power so I appreciated the size of this chapter. By contrast the chapter on graphics is almost entirely unread.

It seems obvious that this book should be compared to Pragmatic's "Rails Recipes". The first point of difference is that Rails Cookbook covers installation and setup. The second point is that is 'Recipes' covers Rails 1.1 while 'Cookbook' targets the brand new Rails 1.2. As a project fairly new on the scene Rails is a fast moving target so the six months between the two books makes a difference. Both books have excellent coverage of the various aspects of Rails, with a great deal of overlap. 'Recipes' has more, shorter pieces while 'Cookbook' tends towards longer pieces with more discussion. 'Cookbook' is also more general, with more recipes more likely to be useful in every Rails project you write.

The style is different between the two. Here Cookbook comes off second best, it feels as though tightly edited by a number of hands and ends up lacking personality; functional but cold compared to Recipes. The writing, however, is good. It's easily read, at times it feels like a good textbook. The layout is clean, it is easy to find the information you need from each recipe when you want.

With almost all "cookbook" style books I seem to be left feeling that a number of the recipes are just a little too obvious and covered well in beginner tutorials. There is some of this in Rails Cookbook, most notably the first two chapters, but overall the book will be useful to any beginner to intermediate Rails programmer. Personally I had a couple of moments where I read a tip and wanted to scream as it demonstrated and explained in a few short sentences and half a page of code what had taken me hours to discover for myself.

The "Cookbook" series all seem to be books worth the price and shelf space. This one is no exception. I'd give it three out of five with an extra half for its timely information on Rails 1.2 and would recommend it for all Rails programmers from the absolute beginner through to all but the most experienced. If you already have a copy of 'Recipes' and are happy with it then you might want to stick with that till either volume is updated for the next major revision of Rails, otherwise you will almost certainly appreciate a copy of Rails Cookbook.

GWT in Action: Easy Ajax with the Google Web Toolkit

Average customer rating:

It's the best.
Book has very little substance
hard to follow and understand

GWT in Action: Easy Ajax with the Google Web Toolkit
Robert Hanson , and Adam Tacy
Manufacturer: Manning Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1933988231

Book Description

The Google Web Toolkit is a new technology that automatically translates Java into JavaScript, making Ajax applications easier to code and deploy. GWT in Action is a comprehensive tutorial for Java developers interested in building the next generation of rich, web-based applications. This book was written by Robert Hanson, creator of the popular GWT Widget Library and Adam Tacy a major contributor to the GWT Widget Library.

There is a new emphasis on building rich, web-based applications. These applications can be difficult to build because they rely on JavaScript, which lacks the sophisticated object-oriented structures and static typing of Java, they are tricky to debug, and they require you to manage numerous browser inconsistencies.

In May of 2006 Google released the Google Web Toolkit (GWT). GWT enables developers to create Ajax applications in Java. With GWT, you can build your applications using a real object-oriented language and take advantage of Java tools like Eclipse that are already available. Instead of trying to bring tool support to Ajax, Google brought Ajax to a place where the tools already existed.

GWT in Action shows you how to take advantage of these exciting new tools. Readers will follow an example running throughout the book and quickly master the basics of GWT: widgets, panels, and event handling. The book covers the full development cycle, from setting up your development environment, to building the application, then deploying it to the web server. The entire core GWT library is discussed, with details and examples on how it can be extended.

GWT helps you make the most of Ajax in your web applications and GWT in Action helps you get more out of GWT. Readers can download Early Access Chapters of GWT in Action now and participate in the Author Forum by visiting at the Manning site.

Customer Reviews:

It's the best........2007-09-09

GWT in Action is a good read, with the pace and depth of instruction just right, suggesting these guys enjoy writing. They like explaining stuff, and the book's editors would have been hard-pressed to eliminate a paragraph without losing an interesting and useful tip or aside. And these guys are GWT software library developers themselves (see the GWT Widget Library at SourceForge, by Mr Hanson). I was enthralled by the GWT presentations at the Google Developer Day 2007 in Sydney, and immediately bought Google Web Toolkit: GWT Java Ajax Programming by Prabhakar Chaganti. I liked it, but GWT in Action is significantly better, which I bought soon after. It's the best.

Book has very little substance.......2007-07-14

This book is very basic. I was exploring the GWT RPC functionality. I found RPC example hardly useful to do anything with it. If you are looking for a book to develop RPC applications, I do not recommend this book.

Get the Dashboard example source code first and try out before buying the book. I was not impressed with the Dashboard example. Book spends most of the time building the example application.

hard to follow and understand.......2007-07-05

Usually, I really like the "in action" series, but "GWT in Action" disappointed me. The book focus on examples "in action" almost to the exclusion of having the reader understand the concepts. It wasn't until the end of the book that I really understood what was going on.

I did like the step by step instructions on how to get started. The examples were good if you needed to do what the example did. It was tough to extrapolate to other scenarios though. Some of the code examples were rather long and involved. The end of the book was also good. It went into detail on HTML form controls, JSON, testing, deployment and most importantly - how GWT works. These would have been nice earlier in the book. Especially the HTML form section. The majority of AJAX at this time is related to forms. Since the cover says "easy AJAX with GWT", I expected more on form based AJAX examples.

I felt that the book was trying to reach too broad an audience. For beginners without an understanding of JavaScript/HTML/DOM, I think it is overwhelming. The book provides "what's new in GWT 1..4", but the book is overkill for someone already using GWT. Most of the time the book treats what happens under the hood of GWT as magic and other times it becomes important. This switching of focus is a bit confusing.

Average customer rating:

Laszlo in Action
Norman Klein , Max Carlson , and Glenn MacEwen
Manufacturer: Manning Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1932394834

Book Description

Laszlo in Action is the first comprehensive guide to the Laszlo system and its language LZX. OpenLaszlo is an increasingly popular open-source platform for the development and delivery of rich internet applications across multiple platforms: Flash, DHTML, and J2ME. The dramatic emergence of Ajax over the past year was a first step in the transition from page-oriented HTML web applications towards more full-featured rich internet applications. OpenLaszlo provides another important step in this continuing evolutionary process through the increased productivity resulting from LZX's declarative approach. It provides developers with the tools to create web-based applications offering the usability and interactivity associated with desktop applications, and the low costs associated with web-based deployment. The cross-platform nature of Laszlo LZX applications allows source code with only minimum modifications to run natively on all popular web browsers, on all desktop operating systems, on the Flash platform, and other platforms in the future.

Written to address the needs of a wide spectrum of developers, ranging from client-side HTML and JavaScript developers all the way to enterprise-class Java or Rails engineers, this book provides a very hands-on approach towards building applications that solve real-world problems across both the Flash and DHTML platforms. Starting with the fundamentals of Laszlo LZX, the authors quickly move towards applying this knowledge to the design and development of a full-scale application called the Laszlo Market. This provides a working context to assist understanding the underlying concepts of Laszlo LZX and, more importantly, how to apply this knowledge in innovative ways. The construction of the Laszlo Market proceeds over the course of the book illustrating topics starting with an initial wireframe and storyboard design to optimization issues dealing with the application's deployment across the Flash and DHTML platforms.

Average customer rating:

A highly recommended book on a surprisingly useful library

Great Book

Solid foundation + great examples

Clearly the best ASP.NET AJAX Book - buy it NOW!

ASP.NET AJAX in Action
Alessandro Gallo , David Barkol , and Rama Vavilala
Manufacturer: Manning Publications
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Introducing Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX (Pro - Developer)

Professional ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX (Programmer to Programmer)

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Pro WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 3.0 (Expert's Voice in .Net)

ASIN: 1933988142

Book Description

Ajax has revolutionized the way users interact with web pages today. Gone are frustrating page refreshes, lost scroll positions and intermittent interaction with a web site. Instead, we have a new generation of fast, rich, and more intuitive web applications. The ASP.NET AJAX framework puts the power of Ajax into the hands of web developers. ASP.NET AJAX, formerly called Atlas, is a new free framework from Microsoft designed to easily add Ajax features to ASP.NET applications. With this technology, ASP.NET developers can easily build more interactive and highly-personalized web applications that work across all most popular browsers.

ASP.NET AJAX in Action is a fast-paced, example-rich tutorial designed for ASP.NET web developers and written by ASP.NET AJAX experts Alessandro "Garbin" Gallo, David Barkol, and Rama Krishna Vavilala. This book introduces you to Ajax applications and to the ASP.NET AJAX technology. Beginners will appreciate the clear explanations of key ideas and terminology. Intermediate and advanced ASP.NET developers will find a no-nonsense learning source and well-organized reference.

ASP.NET AJAX in Action offers a rich set of examples and meticulous explanations. The extensive code samples are accompanied by accurate and rigorous explanations of the concepts behind development with ASP.NET AJAX. In this book, you will discover how to use

Microsoft Ajax Library

Partial rendering with UpdatePanels

Advanced client and server techniques

Ajax Control Toolkit

If you are a web developer looking to bring your web pages to life and to enhance the user experience, this book is for you.

ASP.NET AJAX in Action will give you with the knowledge and tools you need to more easily craft the next generation of Ajax applications. With the help of the Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX framework, Ajax development has never been easier and more instinctive for both client-script developers and ASP.NET developers alike.

Customer Reviews:

A highly recommended book on a surprisingly useful library.......2007-10-02

I had written off ASP.NET AJAX as bloated and for beginners until I bought this excellent book. While I have done AJAX by hand in the past, I'm now a convert to the advantages of leveraging this powerful library. I highly recommend this book both for beginners who want to start with ASP.NET AJAX and those professionals looking to either leverage this library, or to be convinced that they need to.

The book is full of practical examples that I was able to apply immediately to my code, as well as thorough explanations that enabled me to expand on and understand the code provided

Great Book.......2007-09-27

I just completed reading the book ASP.NET Ajax In Action and thought I would share my opinion of the book. While I have read various blogs and articles on AJAX, I am just now starting to implement it into our main enterprise level application, and wanted a book to really get me started in the right direction.

Overall I feel the content of the book is very good and the topics are delivered in an easy to read format. I really like the layout of the book, and feel the chapters were organized very nicely. I did not feel like the authors jumped around from topic to topic too much, and the flow of the book felt very natural.

Full detailed review:
http://devauthority.com/blogs/whoiskb/archive/2007/09/26/Book_Review_ASPNET_AJAX_In_Action_.aspx

Solid foundation + great examples.......2007-09-04

I don't normally give a rave review about books unless I was really satisfied with the book, but this book really is a great book.

First of all, apart from it being an ASP.NET AJAX book, one of things I consider when buying a book is the overall flow of the book - the flows between paragraphs and the flows between chapters. On that note, ASP.NET Ajax in Action has a great flow. Especially the transitions of the book and the divisions of the chapters were well put into the book, so it could feel like reading a novel in some cases.

On the technical side, I like technical books that have a lot of examples that make good sense. This book is full of examples, which is very imporant for understanding a new technology. Another thing I like about th book is the detailed examplanations of the ASP.NET Ajax foundations. For example, it doesn't talk about UpdatePanel until Chatper 6 and 7, which most of ASP.NET developers like to just use for quick development. However, this book does a good job of illustrating the overall architecure of the Ajax framework, and does not neglect that Javascript is also a big part in developing Ajax-enabled websites. Unlike other ASP.NET Ajax books, this book has a few chapters dedicated to client-centric ASP.NET Ajax development, which is necessary for building hard-core ajax sites and components.

To conclude, this book is a must-have for asp.net developers and you can use it as both a reference book and a learning material.

Clearly the best ASP.NET AJAX Book - buy it NOW!.......2007-08-29

I do a lot of reading, and to the best of my knowledge my personal .NET book collection is bigger than anyone else's. The first thing I noticed about this book is the smooth and highly readable writing style - very rare to see in a technical book. As I read through the chapters it became clear to me that the content was no less stunning than the readability! The charts and tables are not merely a reprint of MSDN, and the authors dominated the subject without making it dry like a reference manual.

It was obviously their goal to ensure that readers already familiar with ASP.NET in general would become a subject expert on AJAX just by studying this book. The real world example code stands alone among the other books: this code works and it is highly relevant instead of being a bunch of contrived example snippets! There is no better book on ASP.NET AJAX.

I am looking for any other books from these authors - I'll order them without even thinking about it. There's a very short list of authors about whom I can make that statement. And I'll keep my eye on the Manning publishing company from now on. They know how to edit books well, and they selected the best authors available.

Average customer rating:

jQuery in Action
Bear Bibeault , and Yehuda Katz
Manufacturer: Manning Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

A good web development framework anticipates what you need to do and makes those tasks easier and more efficient; jQuery practically reads your mind. Developers of every stripe-hobbyists and professionals alike-fall in love with jQuery the minute they've reduced 20 lines of clunky JavaScript into three lines of elegant, readable code. This new, concise JavaScript library radically simplifies how you traverse HTML documents, handle events, perform animations, and add Ajax interactions to your web pages.

jQuery in Action, like jQuery itself, is a concise tool designed to make you a more efficient and effective web developer. In a short 300 pages, this book introduces you to the jQuery programming model and guides you through the major features and techniques you'll need to be productive immediately. The book anchors each new concept in the tasks you'll tackle in day-to-day web development and offers unique lab pages where you immediately put your jQuery knowledge to work.

There are dozens of JavaScript libraries available now, with major companies like Google, Yahoo and AOL open-sourcing their in-house tools. This book shows you how jQuery stacks up against other libraries and helps you navigate interaction with other tools and frameworks.

Book Description

There are dozens of Java frameworks out there, but most of them require you to learn special coding techniques and new, often rigid, patterns of development. Wicket is different. As a component-based Web application framework, Wicket lets you build maintainable enterprise-grade web applications using the power of plain old Java objects (POJOs), HTML, Ajax, Spring, Hibernate and Maven. Wicket automatically manages state at the component level, which means no more awkward HTTPSession objects. Its elegant programming model enables you to write rich web applications quickly.

Wicket in Action is an authoritative, comprehensive guide for Java developers building Wicket-based Web applications. This book starts with an introduction to Wicket's structure and components, and moves quickly into examples of Wicket at work. Written by two of the project's earliest and most authoritative experts, this book shows you both the "how-to" and the "why" of Wicket. As you move through the book, you'll learn to use and customize Wicket components, how to interact with other technologies like Spring and Hibernate, and how to build rich, Ajax-driven features into your applications.

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