Customer Reviews

Foundations of Atlas: Rapid Ajax Development with ASP.NET 2.0

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

 

 

This book should be sub-titled "My Thoughts on Stuff I Downloaded from Microsoft." The examples were pulled down from MSDN and were just his comments on those examples. I expected some original material but it was non-existent. I suppose if you haven't seen the online examples this book might be fascinating. Because Atlas is early in its lifecycle I was hoping that this book would contain more documentation than what is available online. It fell short of my expectations.

Microsoft Atlas is THE API for Ajax developers, and this book is a terrific grounding in how to use it. Great job Apress!

Yes, it suffers from some syntax problems that other reviewers have mentioned on here BUT it is an evolving API. It is based on an earlier CTP (April) and MS have just released the June one.

I emailed the author and he mentioned that he is working on revising and updating the text for the new CTPs. He is very fast to respond to any queries -- so I recommend that if you are having trouble, just drop him a line.

This is a fun and easy to read book, and the chapter that takes you through building a financial application in Atlas is worth the price alone.

This book's not perfect, but then neither is the Atlas framework that it's based on - we're still at least 12 months from release after all.

I found that this book was a good introduction to the basic structure and functionality of Atlas. It does what it sets out to do and gives you the foundations of the technology. If you're looking for the deepest secrets of Atlas this book isn't going to give it to you. If you want to know how it works, and want to know *now*, then this book is ideal.

This book does not include a very important part of the Atlas framework, the Atlas Control Toolkit.

The book is also padded out with big screenshots etc that make it seem like the author was trying to the page count up to a respectable level rather than using them because they are effective.

I would recomment the atalas website at atlas.asp.net rather than this book.

This book contains a good balance of information regarding the three main ways to program Atlas: JavaScript, AtlasScript, and server controls. Most Atlas-related articles and books tend to focus on one or two of those methods, because that's what the author is comfortable with, but Foundations of Atlas nicely covers all three.

All examples demonstrate whatever they're trying to do using all three methods, so you can compare the methods, and indirectly start to determine which method works best for you.

There is no time wasted on "related technologies". This book is solidly about Atlas alone, which is wonderful. For that reason (among others) I feel like I got my money's worth.

I personally enjoyed the descriptions of all the various behaviors on each object type. I have not seen that subject covered in such a way anywhere else.

I think there are some errors, as pointed out in some of the reviews here, and there is also some outdated information, but I would frankly expect such things from the first book published about a product that is not even in beta yet. In no way are the errors or outdated information distracting.

Besides, I am not one to download book code samples and use them in my own programs. I read through code examples in a book as if I'm reading normal descriptive text, and then I apply the techniques, not the exact code. Does anyone really use generic code found in a book in their own programs?

I found the code examples to be very good, in that I totally understand how to create Atlas programs after reading the book, and that's the most important measure for me.

For one thing, I have never really understood AtlasScript before reading this book, but after reading it I understand completely.

There really isn't much to choose from if you want to buy an Atlas book. There are several books that mention Atlas in one chapter, but very few that are written just about Atlas -- maybe just this one and "Programming Atlas" (O'Reilly), which I did not like at all.

Someone looking to buy a book on Atlas technologies should definitely buy this book, regardless of a few errors. You will learn a lot about Atlas.

I found this book very easy to understand. If you are disappointed at the book "Programming Atlas" from O'Reilly, you may want to give this book a try.
This book is a much more interesting book to read.

I've been seeing a lot of bad reviews for this book since (apparently) there are a lot of errors in the code. I suppose if your skills are lacking and you need to have a book spoon-feed you in order to learn a new technology, then this book probably is not for you.

On the other hand, if you want a well-written book, which lays out the concepts clearly, and are capable of using Microsoft's own documentation and or Google to assist with specific code issues, then this book is fantastic.

This book starts off with code errors in the first chapter. None of the code will compile. What a waste!!!! Stay away from this one!!!!!

Really good book. Discusses both server side and client side aspects of ATLAS.

This book has been the most difficult book I have every used. I have found more useful information from atlas.asp.net then in this book. Almost every example that I used has had either old syntax errors or just plain syntax errors.

In spending so much time finding the errors, I feel the book should be called "Where's Atlas".