Customer Reviews

Professional JavaScript Frameworks: Prototype,YUI, ExtJS, Dojo and MooTools (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

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I bought this as a result of reading another Wrox book, JavaScript Programmer's Reference, by Alexei White. THAT book is the best I have read on any programming language topic - everything you want to know, in sufficient detail, clearly explained. It has helped me tremendously in getting up to speed with Javascript.

I bought THIS framework book hoping that Wrox books would all be of the same high standard - they definitely ain't. None of the frameworks is explained particularly well and the authors vary greatly in their teaching skills and styles. The whole thing feels rushed and crammed together from disparate parts. I thought I was getting something that would allow me to calmly compare and contrast the frameworks. No such luck. There is no flow or linkage between coverage of the frameworks. This is really just a collection of individual essays and not a cohesive whole. The lack of coverage of JQuery is a crucial omission, I now realize - JQuery is a very compelling framework and I would not now buy a similar book without it.

I'd sell this on Ebay, but I'd feel bad taking someone's money. Unlike Wrox, I guess. The question now is whether to recycle it or wait till winter and light the fire with it. :-)

OK, though it seems like I'm damning the authors, well, it's more the conception. Giving each author: (a) enough space and time; (b) access to the other authors to formulate a section on how their framework compared with the others - might have lead to a good book. Sorry guys, I think you got a bad deal. This book badly needed a lead author.

Anyway, enough blah. :-) Don't buy it.