12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent! Tour De Force of the subject, April 11, 2008
This review is from: Pro Web 2.0 Mashups: Remixing Data and Web Services (Expert's Voice in Web Development) (Paperback)
Kudos to the author and publisher for this release.
This book is a tour de force of the subject of Mashups.
I was looking for a good book on this subject so that I could introduce it to students as part of an extra-curricular technology program in NYC and this book is perfect.
In a sentence, Mashups are created by taking data from one or more sources and making something new and useful from them.
In my opinion, the subject is very important because there is a vast amount of data that is available now. Today the challenge is not just finding data but putting to use. This book shows you how to do that.
The author's writing style is excellent, mixing theory and applications. The book is filled with hands on examples as well as references for research in each of the areas.
I believe that this book can be read by anyone interested in the subject, regardless of their technical background. For those that want to create Mashups without programming, this book shows you how. For those that want to delve into programming, everything that you need is covered including AJAX, PHP, various data formats and how to parse them, various Javascript libraries and more.
The book is laid out in four parts:
1. Remixing Information Without Programming
As the title suggests, the chapters in this section require no previous programming experience. The author walks through some specific examples, introduces terminology and analyzes how sites like Flickr and del.icio.us work so that you can get the most out of them. Tools such as Yahoo! Pipes (a browser-based visual application for Mashups and Remixing) are explored. Following along with the discussion the reader can put together a Mashup or Remix by simply understanding the concepts and using tools, but not having to delve into coding.
2. Remixing a Single Web Application Using Its API
For the person who wants to code, this part of the book jumps right in discussing the Flickr API, PHP usage, XML processing and more. From there the discussion moves to other APIs and using AJAX/Javascript widgets.
3. Making Mashups
This section starts by delving into the ProgrammableWeb website. Showing how to find what resources are available, studying existing Mashups via which APIs they use and how to go about creating new ones. From there XMLHttpRequest and Javascript libraries such as YUI are covered and a step-by-step example is given using the previously discussed techniques. Lastly, the author addresses issues around implementing Mashups on your site including standards, accessibility and your own API. I was glad to see these topics covered as sometimes in the haste of getting something online, they can be overlooked.
4. Exploring Other Mashup Topics
This final section of the book covers a large range of interesting topics such as Map-based Mashups, Social Bookmarking, Calendars, Online Storage, Desktop and Office Suites, Embeddable Data Formats and Searches.
As you can see, there's a lot of information covered in this book. In my opinion, everything that one could want on the subject and written in such a way that you want to keep reading, exploring and creating your own Mashups.
I highly recommend this book - so far, it has been my favorite read of 2008!
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Comprehensive review of Mashups with lots of examples, April 7, 2008
This review is from: Pro Web 2.0 Mashups: Remixing Data and Web Services (Expert's Voice in Web Development) (Paperback)
This is the type of book that you can either skim and get ideas from or sit down at a computer and work through all of the examples. The material is presented clearly and thoroughly illustrates different types of mashups. The book discusses how to use Yahoo Pipes and Google Mashup Editor, their respective map API's along with manipulating Flickr properties and API's. Integrating feeds and blogs into mashups are also described. Though not required, a reader would understand more of the book with some background in languages like javascript, php, and of course xml/html.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you want to know about mashups, buy this book, December 2, 2008
This review is from: Pro Web 2.0 Mashups: Remixing Data and Web Services (Expert's Voice in Web Development) (Paperback)
This book has something for anyone interested in constructing a mashup. Some of the highlights:
- A section about building mashups with minimal programming.
- Creating a mashup using APIs like Flickr, Delicious, or Google APIs (oh - and Amazon).
- A discussion of the broad set of tools available for making mashups like AJAX, XML, and Javascript and examples on how to implement a mashup using them.
- A discussion of other emerging or less popular tools like online calendars and online spreadsheets.
- A section on making your own website mashable.
- Information on setting up feeds.
The author also provides resources for more information throughout the book.
The one shortcoming I think this book has is that it covers a lot. A beginner could use it as well as someone who has been looking at mashup technology for a while. This makes the book pretty big. It is well organized though, so it is easy to get an overview without getting into the details right away.
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