Pro Ajax and Java Frameworks

Great book! I had been chewing around DWR with Spring for a while. This text presented all I needed to know in understandable terms with examples. The author's attention to the background understanding needed is appreciated. Now have DWR working with Spring.

In researching AJAX-specific books, I found they all covered the raw core stuff (what XMLHttpRequest is, what it does, and how to use it) but most of them gave only passing coverage to the frameworks/toolkits available for AJAX and DHTML processing. (e.g., "XYZ is a very nice new toolkit for building AJAX-based web applications. Go to the XYZ web site and read the documentation that isn't there yet to see non-existent examples and learn how to use it.") "AJAX Hacks" came pretty close with some good examples, but without enough breadth and depth. (It is, after all, a "hacks" book.) Just the presence of good examples and good coverage of Prototype, script.aculo.us, and DOJO in this book is enough to make it worthy of note. But the focus of the book is using AJAX with Java frameworks like Struts, Spring, and JSF, and in that regard it also does not disappoint. So you get not only some nice coverage of the client-side toolkits/frameworks that make Ajaxian things happen in the browser, you get a solid grounding in how to connect them to server-side applications using these Java frameworks. Some deeper coverage on things like JSON and REST would have been nice, though.

The authors have taken good efforts to neatly introduce, analyses and compare various javascript tools specifically meant for AJAX. The flow of the book is well managed and its very reader friendly. This book is definitely a one stop reference for knowing what development tools, editors, libraries available for supporting AJAX in Java web applications. Comes with 50MB examples source code. The source code has been configured to easily deploy and test using ANT. This book mostly addresses the freely available AJAX tools. Few drawbacks i found: A lot of pages have been spent on describing and comparing between java frameworks, the authors could have avoided it since this book about using AJAX in java framework. The code listings in the chapters (like html, javascript, jsp) were not well formatted, so it very difficult to read. The authors gives more preference to JSF framework which is again not the context of the book. Thats it. Since the book is published recently(July06), this book covers many latest AJAX and JAVA Framework products, so its saves your time on finding a right tool for your ajax based websites. I dont want to write again the table of contents of this book but want to mention that you will sure learn all the bit and pieces that you need have for setting up a AJAX based java web applications.

"Ajax" is simple ... but if you want to use Ajax, then you need to write JavaScript. Quite probably lots of client-side JavaScript. And that's where "Pro Ajax and Java Frameworks" comes in. It does a good job of explaining Ajax, what it is, and how your web app will benefit from using it. So do all the other Ajax books on the shelf. But that's just Chapter 1. The REST of the book discusses tools and techniques for writing and debugging JavaScript. And then introduces some great, full-featured Javascript libraries to save you the tedium of having to "roll your own". This information is enough to help you successfully launch your first Ajax-based web app. It doesn't matter if you're using Apache or IIS; if your backend is J2EE, .Net or simple HTML: the book will pay for itself on your first project. But all of that's only the FIRST half of the book! The most valuable information is covered in the second half, which goes into great detail on how to effectively use Ajax with frameworks like Struts, Tapestry, Spring and, lastly, with JSF. A great book: highly recommended for any web developer who wants to understand Ajax ... and how to use it effectively.

As users demand a richer website experience and developers try to create sites that don't require additional client-side add-ons many are turning to the combination of Ajax and Java. Of course Ajax does not require Java as it will work with ActiveX as well but the point is that the client does not need to add anything that is not already included in any modern browser. In this book the authors take the reader through the basic functions of using the Ajax techniques. For each technique they do a good job of explaining what they are doing, the purpose of the program, work through an example of the program, and explaining each step. However, I don't know that I would consider this book up to the typical level of other books in the Pro series by the publisher. It is a good introductory text and brings the reader up to speed with the average programmer using Ajax but not the superior level that the Pro series usually works up to. On the other hand, this is one of the better introductory to intermediate level texts. Pro Ajax and Java Frameworks is highly recommended to the programmer new to Ajax techniques and recommended to those already involved with Ajax.