Ajax in Action

I just stumbled across a book called Ajax in Action and it is wonderful. I had no idea this book was even out. It provides a more comprehensive overview of Ajax technologies than any book on the market (or even in beta) including a great section on Ajax Design Patterns. The coverage is nice and varied. They show you how to write Ajax from scratch first, including lots of details about how it works and how to use it well in your application. They then go on to detail the many libraries and frameworks available, and show you how to refactor your code with these libraries. Finally, there are plenty of examples of Ajax applications toward the end of the book. Highly recommended for anyone developing what you might call a Web 2.0 application. The only Ajax book I would keep on my shelf.

Let me first preface this review by saying this is the first technical book that I've read cover to cover TWICE prior to posting a review. I had to make sure the stuff stuck, because the material covered in Manning's very excellent "Ajax in Action" is really deep. But bringing the next evolution of user experience, giving your web applications a rich client feel, isn't completely easy. This won't scare you away from using Ajax in your existing applications, but make you aware of exactly what to expect. The book first starts out by presenting a healthy discussion of the key components of remote scripting - CSS, the DOM, JavaScript's XmlHttpRequest object and client callbacks - and how they interact within the scope of your project. Before diving into full-on Ajax development, authors Dave Crane and Eric Pascarello discuss the need for object-oriented JavaScript programing, which will be foreign and awkward to most developers, even those coming from procedural backgrounds like Java and C++. The authors familiarize you with the various ways of composing the unconventional constructs available (JSON-RPC, prototypes) for optimizing remote scripting. Best practices are encouraged throughout the chapters and enforced in all code snippets. The use of patterns like Observer, Command and MVC and refactoring and module-based programming (mainly .NET assemblies and Java servlets) permeate the entire work. The actual meat of the book doesn't get started until Chapter 9, which the authors clearly state, dealing with the aforementioned discussion of raw JavaScript programming that'll be completely new to most people. But for those not wanting to engage in the massive task of writing syntax by hand, the major libraries available are thankfully referenced. The book also isn't a "copyist's" title, one that can provide working code right out of the gate. Also, the audience for this work should be fairly sopisticated and experienced with modern-day web programming, as the book assumes a certain level of competency and doesn't waste time with rudimentary concepts or examples. Crane and Pascarello take a platform-agnostic look at incorporating Ajax-style programming into web applications, citing examples in PHP, Java and .NET, and accordingly the examples are all partial and abstracted, to be implemented in whatever platform the developer/reader is familiar with. This is also one of the few books that I've ever recommended people read the appendices in addition to the chapters. Most titles have supplementary info that doesn't match the flow of the chapters, or exclusionary stuff you can skip, but this book is really a tome of good reading. Appendix B is an outstanding discussion on JavaScript OOP, providing an introduction to and examples in JSON. Ajax programming is a lot more complex than it lets on, but not as daunting as you might think. This book is critical in your understanding of how to make the next big thing in web development to work for you. A must-ha

"Ajax in Action" is not only an excellent book on Ajax, but the best JavaScript book I have ever read. The authors note early on that Ajax is a process, not a technology. This theme permeates the book. There is an emphasis on requirements, design, implementation, testing and maintenance. So the book shows how to do a real project, not just how to code. Keeping with the real project theme, there is information throughout on refactoring and design patterns. The authors present low level coding idioms as well. All this creates a language for coding Ajax applications. The second half of the book walks you through the entire development process for five sample applications. The book targets a wide audience range, from enterprise developers to self-taught scripters. Basic concepts are explained concisely for newcomers and experienced developers may skim certain sections. However these sections are a very small part of the 600+ page book. An appendix covers an introduction to JavaScript. While you would want to supplement it with materials from the web, it clearly covers the advanced topics that are hard to find elsewhere. There are also introductions and tips on CSS and DOM. In short, I learned a ton about non-Ajax development and page manipulations too. And the book even has a screenshot of JavaRanch! I was expecting a good book when I saw Bear and Ernest's comments on the back. But it still managed to exceed my expections!

Huh? Kind of a weird title! What I mean by it though is that this is an excellent book that covers so many things that even if you aren't especially interested in Ajax but are interested in client-side coding, this book would be a valuable addition to your bookshelf. There is a good bit of "professional" Javascript coding here... Javascript, and client-side coding in general, has historically had a bad rap against it because it's so easy to throw together a ton of spaghetti code that is difficult to debug, extend and maintain. This book will show you how to avoid those pitfalls. Things like properly applying patterns, implenting clean separation of concerns, advanced debugging techniques and reusing all the good OOP techniques you use on the back-end are covered very well. Of course, Ajax is covered fantastically well too... while I would say this isn't a book for beginners (it dives in almost immediately with some code that would probably spin a beginners' head), if you already have a good grasp of Javascript, HTTP and web development in general then this will be the absolute perfect introduction to Ajax. The book starts by giving a solid description of what Ajax is, and more importantly, why it can represent such a paradigm shift for so many people. From there they dive into the theory behind it, how it works, how it differs from what you probably have done before, and also how to do the same thing without Ajax. After that it's example city! Plenty of demonstrations of the techniques being talked about, and all the while they continue to explain it from a theoretical standpoint too so that you not only can copy the code as-is and use it, you understand why it is done how it is, so you can apply that knowledge on your own later. One thing very much worth mentioning is that there are examples in .Net, Java and PHP, and if I remember correctly there is an equal number of examples in each. I think this is a wonderful decision on the authors' part. Everyone should find something here. And of course most of it is actually client-side anyway, so even if you aren't a PHP guy for instance, you should have little difficulty following the PHP examples along too. To summarize, if you are in the market for a book on Ajax, or indeed just a book on how to code Javascript on the client in a "good" way, you need not look any further than this book in my opinion. It's sitting on my bookshelf, and I'm sure I'll be referring to it as time goes on without question. Highly recommended!

Ajax is a Web programming technique that lets you develop rich, dynamic, interactive interfaces using nothing but JavaScript, HTML and CSS on the desktop. It's changing the landscape of the Web, and this book will help you gear up to be part of the revolution. Renaissance men David Crane and Eric Pascarello show you how to weave together the many pieces that make up an Ajax application: JavaScript, server-side components, HTML, CSS, and XML. More importantly, they teach you the tools and techniques you'll need to develop industrial-strength applications using JavaScript, a language that doesn't always get as much respect as it deserves. This is really two books in one: first, it's a look at the Ajax technologies and prescriptions for their effective use. There are detailed discussions of relevant design patterns and of strategies for designing usable and secure applications. There are substantial discussions of a number of Ajax frameworks, libraries, and development tools, as well as developer features of Web browsers that you've probably never learned about but can't live without. The second half of the book is a cookbook, a compendium of detailed blueprints for concocting your own versions of a trifecta of Ajax showcases: dynamic double combo boxes, typeahead select boxes, and Web portals with selectable, draggable portlets. There are even recipes for assembling standalone Ajax applications that use existing third-party Web services as a back-end. I liked that the cookbook built on the earlier parts of the book by deliberately applying the design patterns and refactoring techniques therein described. If you're serious about helping to revolutionize the Web, you need this book.