Customer Reviews

Developing Web Applications

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For what this book was written to do, I think it succeeds. It is a BASIC introduction to the most common Web technologies, including HTML, CSS, XML, JavaScript, PHP, Web Servers, MySQL and a few other topics. You have to understand that if someone is going to cover all that ground, AND very clearly states "assuming no prior experience" on the back cover then you won't get in depth coverage of any particular topic.

I found it well organized and a pleasant read. I've been programming for 10 years, but not Web applications, and this was a good re-introduction to a few topics I've seen before, a few I was not familiar enough with, and this book tied the whole set together quite nicely.

I am new to web development and learning SQL, Apache, RoR, PHP, Ajax, etc. I was looking for a general book that tied together all the different elements I'm learning. I picked this book up at a bookstore without reading any reviews or doing any research.

Unfortunately, this book is full of out of date and just plain wrong information. For example, the author talks about how lucky we are that all the web browsers now follow the same standard (news to me), and he speaks of how Netscape Navigator and IE both follow the W3C standards. He also spends a chapter explaining how to make non-compliant html pages before he does a chapter on XHTML.

I felt that in addition to the misleading information, there was a huge lack of information on many important technologies such as Ruby on Rails and Ajax. I would definitely not recommend this book.

If you develop web applications, there are a few technologies that you will be using in 2006/7.
You will be using either AJAX, JSP/Servlet, Ruby on Rails or Flex/Actionscript. There is no mention of AJAX, which is surprising as it deals with some of the technologies behind it, Flex or Rails and spends about a paragraph on JSP and servlets. This is really surprising as the print date is 2007!

IMHO this book is not about what it say's on the cover! If you are looking for something on Web 2.0 development, look elsewhere. here are some suggestions:

AJAX:
Ajax in Action
Bulletproof Ajax (Voices That Matter)
Professional Ajax, 2nd Edition (Programmer to Programmer)

JSP/Servlets:
Head First Servlets and JSP: Passing the Sun Certified Web Component Developer Exam (SCWCD)

Rails:
Agile Web Development with Rails (Pragmatic Programmers)

Flex:
Programming Flex 2: The comprehensive guide to creating rich media applications with Adobe Flex (Programming)