Assemble the Social Web with zembly [Paperback]

Gail Anderson (Author), Paul Anderson (Author), Todd Fast (Author), Chris Webster (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 29, 2008

Use zembly to Create Social Web Applications for: Facebook, Flickr, iPhone, and More!

With zembly you can create mashups and web applications drawing on content from virtually any web site, API call, or data stream. What’s more, zembly makes it as easy to deploy and scale next-generation web applications as it is to build them. Suddenly, the web itself becomes programmable: the browser becomes your development environment, and you can leverage building blocks created by thousands of developers, worldwide.

With extensive contributions from zembly’s creators, Assemble the Social Web with zembly is the first and only official guide to zembly. This book brings together all the knowledge and code you’ll need to build applications for today’s leading Web 2.0 platforms: Facebook, Flickr, Google Maps, iPhone, and more.

The authors begin with a high-level tour of zembly that clearly explains its goals, capabilities, core concepts, and long-term direction. You’ll quickly walk through constructing your first zembly application; then, learn step-by-step how to use zembly with each of today’s most powerful and popular social web platforms.

Coverage includes

• Understanding the new paradigm of social programming
• Building Flickr widgets to generate and display web-based slide shows
• Creating widgets that draw upon Zillow’s enormous real estate database
• Developing mashups that incorporate maps and geographical data from Google Maps
• Integrating with Facebook: from the absolute basics through advanced techniques utilizing the Facebook Data Store Model
• Using Dapper Dapps to create feeds that can capture content from virtually any web site
• Using zembly to simplify and accelerate iPhone web app development

Whether you’re a long-time web professional or a casual developer with a specialized problem to solve, zembly is the tool you’ve been waiting for. One book brings together everything you need to make the most of it: Assemble the Social Web with zembly.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Use zembly to Create Social Web Applications for: Facebook, Flickr, iPhone, and More!

With zembly you can create mashups and web applications drawing on content from virtually any web site, API call, or data stream. What’s more, zembly makes it as easy to deploy and scale next-generation web applications as it is to build them. Suddenly, the web itself becomes programmable: the browser becomes your development environment, and you can leverage building blocks created by thousands of developers, worldwide.

With extensive contributions from zembly’s creators, Assemble the Social Web with zembly is the first and only official guide to zembly. This book brings together all the knowledge and code you’ll need to build applications for today’s leading Web 2.0 platforms: Facebook, Flickr, Google Maps, iPhone, and more.

The authors begin with a high-level tour of zembly that clearly explains its goals, capabilities, core concepts, and long-term direction. You’ll quickly walk through constructing your first zembly application; then, learn step-by-step how to use zembly with each of today’s most powerful and popular social web platforms.

Coverage includes

• Understanding the new paradigm of social programming
• Building Flickr widgets to generate and display web-based slide shows
• Creating widgets that draw upon Zillow’s enormous real estate database
• Developing mashups that incorporate maps and geographical data from Google Maps
• Integrating with Facebook: from the absolute basics through advanced techniques utilizing the Facebook Data Store Model
• Using Dapper Dapps to create feeds that can capture content from virtually any web site
• Using zembly to simplify and accelerate iPhone web app development

Whether you’re a long-time web professional or a casual developer with a specialized problem to solve, zembly is the tool you’ve been waiting for. One book brings together everything you need to make the most of it: Assemble the Social Web with zembly.

About the Author

Gail Anderson is a software specialist and author who has written numerous books on leading-edge technology.

Paul Anderson is a founding member  of the Anderson Software Group, Inc., a leading provider of programming and software development training courses.
The Andersons’ previous books include Java Studio Creator Field Guide (Sun Microsystems Press, 2006) and Enterprise JavaBeans Component  Architecture (Prentice Hall, 2002).

Todd Fast is the architect and CTO of zembly. Previously, he was Chief Architect for Enterprise Java tools  at Sun Microsystems, and a lead architect for the NetBeans IDE focusing on SOA, web services, and XML.

Chris Webster is a Senior Staff Engineer at Sun Microsystems and Technical Lead  for zembly. He is a co-author of NetBeans™ IDE Field Guide Second Edition (Prentice Hall, 2006).

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (December 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0137144318
• ISBN-13: 978-0137144310
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,233,699 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Zembly- A palce to begin coding, April 11, 2009

By 

Scott L. Wolpow "Too Many Books To Read" (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Assemble the Social Web with zembly (Paperback)

The concept of Zembly is fascinating. The book explains what Zembly is and how to use `widgets' that are available. The average person would love to create there own Facebook app, but lacks the skill set to do so.
No fear, just read this book and you will start to build what you want. For the more experienced coder, this book may be a bit dry, but there is always a good nugget of information or and an idea to take from it. For me, I was able to figure out another unrelated problem, based on an example in the book.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars who is this for?, March 4, 2009

By 

Jeanne Boyarsky (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Assemble the Social Web with zembly (Paperback)

"Assemble the Social Web with Zembly" is the official book for Zembly. It shows how to use Zembly for Facebook/iPhone/flickr/Zillow/Dapper. Parts of the book read a bit like a commercial. For example chapter one spends eleven pages giving roughly the information you would get at a free conference talk. Then it gets more informative.

The introduction says the audience is people who either know or are willing to learn JavaScript. They do give references for those who don't know it yet. I had some difficultly with the intended audience. A good part of the book is step by step - almost as if the audience is new to the web (here's how to edit your profile, here's how to add a contact, etc.) Then periodically the book shows reams of JavaScript code. Something I'm not fond of in a coding book let alone a more general one.

A few places refer to features that are in beta or may change before release. Despite the disclaimer, this seems out of place in a book.

I did like how the book didn't assume you've built widgets before. The list of Facebook integration points was particularly interesting. I also really liked the activity diagram in the iPhone chapter.

The book had it's moments that I liked and didn't like. Overall I was neutral on it.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's a good book to learn how to use zembly the best tool that develops social apps, January 7, 2009

By 

J. LIU - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Assemble the Social Web with zembly (Paperback)

Follow the instructions in the book will lead you very easy to create social applications on the most popular social network.