Customer Reviews

Beginning Google Maps API 3

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Thanks to the authors very clear writing and frequent use of small examples this book is a pleasure to read. Everything I wanted to know was covered. The online documentation of the google maps api 3 is pretty good, but I definitely found that using this book helped me get my project done alot faster. Even after I was done with my project, i went back and read through every page of this book, just because the author is easy to understand and the small examples are fun to follow.

I'm sometimes tasked with creating web mapping applications for my job, so I'm constantly visiting the Google Maps API group for help with any problems, or just to search for interesting web mashups posted by others. Last year, I somehow followed link after link after link and found myself looking at Gabriel Svennerberg's blog. After reading several entries pertaining to the Google Maps API, I bookmarked his blog because I knew I would refer to it in the future - everything he wrote was not only useful but easy to understand. When he announced he was writing a Google Maps v3 book, I was excited - an entire book written in the style of the blog posts that I found so valuable! The only problem was that the blog posts slowed to a trickle, as Gabriel was spending most of his time writing for the book.

It's been over a year since Gabriel announced he was writing the book, but it's finally here and I can easily say it's been worth the wait. I don't come from programming background - I kind of fell into the Google Maps API while studying Geography - so it's been a constant struggle for me to find accessible Google Maps API resources that not only cover the capabilities of the API, but also explain the JavaScript concepts behind them in a way that I can understand. Gabriel's writing style is very easy to read and understand and the examples found in each chapter are immediately useful for all sorts of applications. It almost seems like this book was written specifically for me.

This was a great read, and it's a book that I'm sure I'll consult many, many times. I've bought a ton of programming books that have been an absolute chore to read, and those books usually end up on my bookshelf unread. This book is going to stay right next to me on my desk. Hopefully this book sells well enough that Gabriel decides to keep writing.

As the book title says this is for those readers who are getting to know Google Maps API 3. It's written clean and understandable, with lot of code examples and pictures which represents given code result. At the beginning of book some description of Google Maps API, version 3, and mapping fundamentals are written. After basic introduction to some coding (xhtml,css,javascript, how to use api reference) book dives into API elements: how to create map, set mapOptions, markers, marker icons, infoWindows, Polylines and Polygons. In appendix is included API reference, which is very useful. Through book there are a lot of tips, usually a web page which will give you more information of currently read topic. So, if you're a Google Maps API 3 beginner, this is the right book for you.

I just started at a job where I am doing mostly javascript programming (I've only done java and vb in the past) and I am making a google maps widget for a site. This book gave me absolutely everything I needed to get started, from javascript tips to basic (and slightly more advanced) maps features. Of course, since this is a beginner book I turned to the internet for advice on more advanced polygons, but I still regularly return to the book for its clear, well-written instructions and wealth of tips and tricks.

I'm an experienced web developer, and though this book is clearly meant to be accessible for very inexperienced people as well, I found it a clear and useful introduction to the Google Maps API3.

Some experienced reviewers have grumbled that the book is basic, but I see it differently. If Svennerberg had custom-written a book for me taking into account exactly what I already do and don't know, it would have been much thinner. But I don't expect custom-written books. I just skipped the parts that I already knew, and I very much appreciated the clear descriptions and simple examples for the parts that were new to me.

Could an experienced developer figure all this out by crawling the API documentation and posting questions to Stack Overflow? Obviously. But this book cost me less than $20. I don't know what your time's worth to you, but there's no question that by pulling all the basics together in a tidy, readable format with working examples, this book saved far, far more than $20 of my time.

I was working on a mapping project - first time interacting with the Google Map API - and this book helped me deliver a very nice solution.

This was the most useful of three books I bought about Google Maps API, and the only one to be up-to-date with version 3. (This saves a lot of time "translating", as there are a lot of differences between the two.) It's well organized and easy to follow, taking you step by step from displaying a simple map, to adding markers, to geocoding and beyond. It addressed all the main topics I needed to create a solid application. It's clearly and conversationally written, but the proofreading could have been better - there are semi-frequent minor errors in the text. Overall, if you're starting out with Google Maps API or need a refresher, I would highly recommend it. And for those who have been using version 2, there's also a helpful chapter on the major changes and how you need to update your code.

This book is OK but doesn't give up enough to build a complete solution. This book will help you build your maps basic user interface. The issue of managing data to place on the map is not addressed beyond hard-coding the data in the html.

I would have preferred a more holistic approach.

I have never worked with google maps before and it has been years since I did anything with Javascript - and could browse through the book in an afternoon.
The content contains some perls, that I am sure will help me.
Most of it however is veryyy basic. The Google Maps API is not that hard to understand after all.

What I really liked were the links to additional information on the web. Took me another afternoon to read all those .-)

Lucerne, 21.01.2011
Stephan Wiesner

This book while written in a very nice fashion is not helpful to those who are already programmers. It goes over basic syntax of java and thats about it.