Learning Ext JS [Paperback]

Shea Frederick (Author), Colin Ramsay (Author), Steve 'Cutter' Blades (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1847195148 | ISBN-13: 978-1847195142 | Publication Date: November 28, 2008

The book provides plenty of fun example code and screenshots to guide you through the creation of examples to assist with learning. By taking a chapter-by-chapter look at each major aspect of the Ext JS framework, the book lets you digest the available features in small, easily understandable, chunks, allowing you to start using the library for your development needs immediately. This book is written for Web Application Developers who are familiar with HTML but may have little to no experience with JavaScript application development. If you are starting to build a new web application, or are re-vamping an existing web application, then this book is for you.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Shea Frederick Shea has worked closely with the Ext JS creators since inception, and more recently the added development team to create cutting edge web-interactivity. His full time work as part of a User Experience Development team allows him the freedom to explore the latest developments in the world of web applications and implement them in real-world requirements. In his free time, he enjoys mountain biking and skiing.
Colin Ramsay
Colin Ramsay began his web career hacking around ASP websites in a part-time developer job when he was at university. Since then he's been involved with a range of web technologies, which have provided a springboard for the formation of his UK-based web development company, run in tandem with his fledgling writing projects.
Steve 'Cutter' Blades
Cutter is the Senior Web Developer for Dealerskins, a Nashville, Tennessee based hosting provider that develops websites for the Automobile Dealership market. Cutter began his web career when he began learning HTML 1 while in the US Army and stationed with the National Security Agency. Cutter got into application development as a Corporate Support Specialist for a regional ISP, just prior to becoming the IT Director of Seacrets, a large resort destination on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Cutter has extensive experience as a server- and client-side developer, with a popular blog dedicated to ColdFusion, Ext JS, and other web development technologies.

Product Details

• Paperback: 299 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing (November 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847195148
• ISBN-13: 978-1847195142
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #370,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Shea has spent the majority of his career in web development and first began developing web applications for Tower Records that combined the call center interface with inventory and fulfillment. Since then, Shea has worked as a developer for several companies - building and implementing various commerce solutions, content management systems, and lead tracking program. Integrating new technologies to make a better application has been a driving point for Shea's work. He strives to use open source libraries as they are often the launching pad for the most creative technological advances. He has worked closely with the ExtJS creators since inception to create cutting edge web interactivity and has contributed to its growth by writing documentation, tutorials, example code and a book for Packt. He has remained an active community member for the modern yui-ext library - ExtJS. On the rare occasion he's away from his keyboard, you can find him mountain biking or skiing.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Atrocious index, shallow coverage, spell a short shelf life, February 1, 2009

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George Jempty "Insert pithy tagline here" (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Learning Ext JS (Paperback)

The index to this book is grossly inadequate, I've tried to look up various terms, and they are not where you would expect to find them alphabetically. For instance, there is only one entry for JSON under "J" but as I read the book there were probably another dozen references, which instead are presumably organized under the appropriate heading within the index. But someone who is just "Learning ExtJS" as per the title won't know how the topics are or should be organized, and then is in the position of perusing the entire index or even book, which defeats the purpose of an index.

There is another glaring issue regarding JSON, and that is that the book perpetuates gross misinformation about the JSON data interchange format. In particular, it refers to the omnipresent configuration objects used by ExtJS as JSON, and this is indisputably inaccurate; all you have to do is visit [...] for instance to learn that string keys within JSON objects must be double quoted, but this is not the case with ExtJS configuration objects.

It's not entirely the authors' fault though, as even the ExtJS documentation regarding the "JsonStore" object bogus-ly refers to an object literal as JSON when the value contains "new Date(....)" which is NOT allowed in JSON. Regardless, the authors should know the underlying language and data formats sufficiently to not perpetuate this misinformation. Douglas Crockford, inventor of JSON, has written that Javascript is the most misunderstood programming language, and now JSON is on its way to becoming the most misunderstood data interchange format, and this book just exacerbates the process.

As programmers we are supposed to be painstakingly precise, so such grossly inaccurate and misleading information is anathema, and calls into question the validity and veracity of the rest of the material. Even without the issues surrounding JSON, there are too many other inaccuracies for this volume to warrant unmitigated praise. The "notes" in particular, to which special attention are drawn every few pages or so, are unclear sometimes to the point of being non-sequitirs because they refer to material a half-page or page away.

The above all being said, after initially reading half of the chapters of this book, I have picked it up on average once or twice a day in my first couple of weeks working with the framework, so it's by no means entirely worthless. However, I expect how often I refer to this book to decrease dramatically in the near future, and not just because of the atrocious index. Rather, so much of this book barely scratches the surface, and the shame is it doesn't have to be this way.

For instance, Chapter 9 regarding tree structures does well to note at the beginning that this is ideal for dealing with files and folders hierarchies. But then instead of showing off this functionality for this purpose, the example diagrams show branches and leaves of the tree named "aardvark", "bee", "cockroach". This might be fine to illustrate sorting, but these diagrams are used throughout the entire chapter, most of which has nothing to do with sorting, nor does the chapter go on to cover using trees to represent file and folder hierarchies whatsoever; it's as though the authors have never really used ExtJS's tree functionality.

In the end all I will be able to do with the book is give it away; it can by no means serve as an enduring reference. If you need a lot of hand holding, this book might be appropriate, otherwise stick with the online documentation and forums.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good introduction to EXT JS, May 24, 2009

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~Kyle (Upstate, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Learning Ext JS (Paperback)

This book is a good introduction to EXT JS. It will teach you the basics and help to get you familiar with writing code in EXT JS and learning the basic syntax. The examples are helpful and most are easy to follow. This book is an introduction because it does not go into much detail about building a complex web application but it will give you the confidence to continue researching and learning EXTJS on your own.

I would recommend this book to anyone that has some experience in programming that is looking to start coding in EXT JS. Just dont expect it to teach you everything there is to know, it is more of a stepping stone.

Overall, if you are just getting into EXT JS and want a good book to get you started this is the one.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good for beginner, November 26, 2009

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Yanick Rochon (Quebec, Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Learning Ext JS (Paperback)

I just start with ExtJS and I think this book is perfect for those like me who wants to know what can be done with this framework and get good and simple code examples.