Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself Ajax, JavaScript, and PHP All in One

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Firstly, when a book is about a constantly changing web-programming technology like AJAX, you expect it to be up-to-date, right?

Well, two chapters in, and I've already spotted several typographical errors. What's worse is the outdated nature of some of the technologies depicted in the book. Let me illustrate:

Chapter 1: When illustrating assorted web browsers the text uses IE6. I'm sorry, but IE7 has been officially released for nearly two years now, and you couldn't be bothered to upgrade the screenshots in that time? This book was published June 2008, with a 2009 copyright, and you're using screenshots that were outdated in 2006?

Further, the fact that the screenshot of Firefox in the first chapter shows that at the time of the screenshot, Firefox 1.0.7 was the current release shows that that was taken mid-2005, as Firefox 1.5 was released November 2005.

I'm sorry, but these over-two-years-old screenshots of antiquated technologies featured in a text, and the fact that it seems to feature IE6 throughout already has me somewhat turned off to the book. If this is the attention to detail that they have paid thus far, what will have slipped through the cracks in the programming portions, and what other techniques were already antiquated by the time this book was published?

As has been said in a previous review, this book already seems quite dated after only the first two chapters. Having completed the book, I can say it only got worse. Much of the basics are covered fairly well, but as the book progresses into more complicated areas, where more detailed explanations are really needed, it fails to deliver. Some of the example code will not even run without error. It seems the book is a "best of" compilation thrown together from bits of previous books, but purported to be a new work.

I bought this book in an attempt to teach myself Javascript and PHP. It seemed like a good idea at the time, the name implied the possibility. I found this book to be pretty average. I haven't finished it yet but I still need to write this review. I completed the entire JavaScript section of the book, as per the reading, the coding and the activities, and only learnt that I keep making a lot of mistakes in my coding (oh and I have made a clock, sort of, WOW! - Sarcasm). 130 odd pages in and all I can say is I know what Javascript is, and sort of what its capable of but that's it. This book left me confused with a headache, and I still know practically nothing about JavaScript. I can kind of read the code now, but I still have no real understanding of the code's purpose as its written. I hope the PHP section redeems this book but I won't hold my breath. After the decent HTML/CSS book by this publisher (different authors) I expected a bit better.

I realise that JavaScript is complicated (to me at least) and out of the 2 books I've read this was the better one, but I still don't know how. I found this book so unhelpful that I have ordered other books to try and salvage my attempts at JavaScripting and PHP.

Also 130 pages to learn JavaScript
40 pages to Learn PHP
And 70 Pages of "Complex Ajax Technology"

This book is way too short. My other JavaScript book, which is incredibly out of date is over 600 pages, and is only JavaScript. I will be returning to it (as complex as it is) to try and work out what I've wasted my time doing.

Turn Back! Run Away! (from this book) It's too late for me!

The problem I had with this book is the lack of all the source code required. In listing 20.2, the source code in the book refers to a js file that isn't included and thus the code doesn't work.
I'm not new to PHP or HTML programming but am to JavaScript and AJAX. This book didn't do anything for bridging the gap. At best, it provides a very light overview of what the two are and maybe one or two snippets of code you could reuse in other projects but only after you've found other resources to learn how to program in js and Ajax.
I would look for other resources.

Not impressed with the syntax errors in this book. It took me running some of the examples on three different browsers before I realised that the JS syntax was incorrect in some of the source code. This book/publisher doesn't even offer example (used in the book) source code for download from an external website, let alone CORRECTED download example source code. "Sam's" stuff seems to be a hair above the "Dummies" books - which no serious technical professional should touch.

I read this book after finishing the light on Sams teach yourself Ajax in 10 minutes. I found this book a good introduction to javascript and to a lesser extent php. The Ajax content was very similar to that written in the 10 minutes title.

This is a book to get you started and confident to explore larger projects. For me I found this introduction very valuable however I don't believe I would use it as a reference.

I purchased this book and thought this would be the most updated book but it was very hard to understand the codding without the full explination and the software that came with the book was out of date and didn't contain all the codes from the book. The books targets straight to the code without much explination you would be so lost if you are a biggners or even an intermediate.

Contrary to its publishing blurb, this book contains very few "step by step" instructions and almost no opportunities to practice or integrate the information presented. Although the very basic principles of JavaScript, Ajax, and PHP are fairly easy to understand from what is written, the more complicated the programming concepts, the fewer and further between are explanations, examples, and exercises. This book is so "Do-It-Yourself" that I'd literally recommend going and buying three different books on each of the topics this one tries to cover rather than bothering with this one.

The cut-and-paste editing of the text is also obvious, with various standards of HTML being adhered to on different pages, without any regard for or even mention of current best practices for any of the technologies in question. I'm reading this book under an online subscription and am very glad I did not actually buy it, because I am learning very little that I didn't already know.

For someone with no programming experience at all, its usefulness would be very limited, as it is mainly a breezy introduction to its subject matter; I'm still reading it precisely because I hope to at least get an overview of how Ajax works, but I will be looking at other texts to find out how actually to implement the many briefly mentioned concepts in this one. I was skeptical that a 350-page book would be able to present, in depth, any one of the three topics this one proposes to teach, and I was right. Longer books may seem more intimidating, but you can't cut out so much substance and expect to have anything helpful left. The book is not even worth keeping as a reference, there is so little explanation here.

This actually is a decent book but I felt it wasn't quite up to what I thought I was buying. I was hoping for a little more subject matter on actually using all three technologies together and how that might look. For a lot of folks, mixing Javascript and PHP is a mystery and this could have been covered better. Ajax topics were well written, however.

This book provides the bare minimal knowledge/information required for you to get started using Ajax. This can be good or bad: if you want to get started quickly ( without learning too little ) than this might be for you, if you are looking for a in-depth ajax book, than this is not for you.