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Professional Ajax (Programmer to Programmer)
Books: Computers: Mac OS X: Item 3
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Professional Ajax (Programmer to Programmer)by Nicholas C. Zakas, Jeremy McPeak, and Joe Fawcett
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful: Outstanding platform-agnostic look at Ajax programming, February 17, 2006 Reviewer:Jason A. Salas (Dededo, Guam Guam) - The book does a good job academically of showing how Ajax has evolved (itself a debatable topic) and how it is used in modern-day applications. The book doesn't marry the reader to any one particular web development framework, effectively citing examples in PHP, .NET, and JavaServer Pages. Practically, the authors exhibit a proper mix of (X)HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Dynamic HTML and XmlHttpRequests, showing how the technologies are blended for developing next-gen UIs. There are great discussions of advanced concepts like JSON, REST, and SOAP-based web services and how Ajax is incorporated into them. Also, coding to allow cross-browser compatibility is stressed throughout the book, particularly in instantiating an XMLHTTP object across IE, Firefox, Mozilla and Safari. The authors' zXml and XParser are cited as two of several third-party libraries to seamlessly pull this off. Some gems that I found within the book include Chapter 8 - "Web Site Widgets", which is very helpful, giving practical demonstrations and usable code for several Ajax-driven mini-applications we could all use in our web projects. Chapter 7's case study of a Google Suggest-style autocomplete text box was very elegant, using JSON as an alternative to XML's typically verbose payload. Chapter 2 - "Ajax Patterns" also abstracts many of the features common to apps using Ajax (i.e., polling, autosave, incremental updating). All are well done and greatly appreciated. Syntactically, the authors' programming style is very clever. While not exhaustively described, the book shows how to feign object-oriented programming in client-side JavaScript, making liberal use of such time-saving coding tricks like faux classes, inline function definitions and prototypes. In criticism, the one chapter I found to be a letdown was Chapter 5 - "RSS/Atom", mainly because I'm very involved with work in that space. A terse description of content syndication is presented, but then followed exclusively by an analysis the FooReader.NET web-based RSS aggregator app. It's nice, but doesn't take a more holistic view of how Ajax is being used elsewhere. I would have also liked to see examples in emerging platforms, specifically Ruby on Rails and the Ajax support built directly into that web framework. But overall this is a very good introductory read for experienced programmers wanting to get up to speed on the next big thing in advanced web UI development. I'm a better, more aware, more prepared developer for having read it.
Book Description
Written for experienced web developers, Professional Ajax shows how to combine tried-and-true CSS, XML, and JavaScript technologies into Ajax. This provides web developers with the ability to create more sophisticated and responsive user interfaces and break free from the "click-and-wait" standard that has dominated the web since its introduction.
Professional Ajax discusses the range of request brokers (including the hidden frame technique, iframes, and XMLHttp) and explains when one should be used over another. You will also learn different Ajax techniques and patterns for executing client-server communication on your web site and in web applications. By the end of the book, you will have gained the practical knowledge necessary to implement your own Ajax solutions. In addition to a full chapter case study showing how to combine the book's Ajax techniques into an AjaxMail application, Professional Ajax uses many other examples to build hands-on Ajax experience. Some of the other examples include:
- web site widgets for a news ticker, weather information, web search, and site search
- preloading pages in online articles
- incremental form validation
- using Google Web APIs in Ajax
- creating an autosuggest text box
Back Cover Copy
Combining tried-and-true CSS, XML, and JavaScript™ technologies, Ajax provides web developers with the ability to create more sophisticated and responsive user interfaces and break free from the "click-and-wait" standard that has dominated the web since its introduction.
This book discusses the range of request brokers (including the hidden frame technique, iframes, and XMLHttp) and explains when one should be used over another. You will also learn different Ajax techniques and patterns for executing client-server communication on your web site and in web applications. Each chapter builds on information in the previous chapters so that by the end of the book, you will have gained the practical knowledge necessary to implement your own Ajax solutions.
What you will learn from this book
- Different methods for achieving Ajax communication and when to use each
- A variety of Ajax design patterns to use in specific data retrieval circumstances
- Techniques for using Ajax with RSS and Atom to produce a web-based news aggregator
- How to use JavaScript Object Notation as an alternate data transmission format for Ajax communications
- How to create Ajax widgets, such as a weather display and news ticker, that can be included in your web site
Who this book is for
This book is for web developers who want to enhance the usability of their sites and applications. Familiarity with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS is necessary, as is experience with a server-side language such as PHP or a .NET language.
Wrox Professional guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the real-world needs of programmers, developers, and IT professionals. Focused and relevant, they address the issues technology professionals face every day. They provide examples, practical solutions, and expert education in new technologies, all designed to help programmers do a better job.
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