Head Rush Ajax (Head First) (Paperback)

by Brett McLaughlin (Author)
Key Phrases: idle place, head rush, request method, Break Neck, Coffee Maker, Head First (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Sick of creating web sites that reload every time a user moves the mouse? Tired of servers that wait around to respond to users' requests for movie tickets? It sounds like you need a little (or maybe a lot of) Ajax in your life. Asynchronous programming lets you turn your own web sites into smooth, slick, responsive applications that make your users feel like they're back on the information superhighway, not stuck on a dial-up backroad.

But who wants to take on next-generation web programming with the last generation's instruction book? You need a learning experience that's as compelling and cutting-edge as the sites you want to design. That's where we come in. With Head Rush Ajax, in no time you'll be writing JavaScript code that fires off asynchronous requests to web servers...and having fun doing it. By the time you've taken your dynamic HTML, XML, JSON, and DOM skills up a few notches, you'll have solved tons of puzzles, figured out how well snowboards sell in Vail, and even watched a boxing match. Sound interesting? Then what are you waiting for? Pick up Head Rush Ajax and learn Ajax and asynchronous programming the right way--the way that sticks.

If you've ever read a Head First book, you know what to expect: a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works. Head Rush ramps up the intensity with an even faster look and feel. Have your first working app before you finish Chapter 1, meet up with the nefarious PROJECT: CHAOS stealth team, and even settle the question of the Top 5 Blues CDs of all time. Leave boring, clunky web sites behind with 8-tracks and hot pants--and get going with next-generation web programming.

"If you thought Ajax was rocket science, this book is for you. Head Rush Ajax puts dynamic, compelling experiences within reach for every web developer." -- Jesse James Garrett, Adaptive Path

"A 'technology-meets-reality' book for web pioneers on the cutting edge." -- Valentin Crettaz, CTO, Condris Technologies

About the Author
Brett McLaughlin has become one of the most well-known authors and programmers in the Java and XML communities. He's worked for Nextel Communications, implementing complex enterprise systems, at Lutris Technologies, actually writing application servers, and most recently at O'Reilly Media, Inc., where he continues to write and edit books that matter. His most recent book, "Java 5.0 Tiger: A Developer's Notebook", was the first book available on the newest version of Java, and his classic Java and XML remains one of the definitive works on using XML technologies in Java.

Product Details

• Paperback: 446 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc. (March 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596102259
• ISBN-13: 978-0596102258
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #211,779 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #51 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Languages & Tools > XHTML
  #53 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Languages & Tools > Ajax

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great "dummies" book ..., October 20, 2006

By	Francis Wong "fwong" (Ashburn, VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you are a complete beginner with respect to many of the skills needed for Ajax: HTML, CSS, DOM, JavaScript, then this book might be for you. All of the O'reilly Head First/Head Rush series are excellent teaching books and do a wonderful job at teaching skills in small bite-size chunks. Lots of pictures, exercises and games. This is about as fun as a book can get.

But once you've read the book, you'll realize that you really didn't cover much ground at all. 400 pages of Head Rush Ajax is about the same amount of Ajax technical material as 40 pages of Ajax in Action. All those fun pictures and games take up a lot of pages! Only the most basic topics of Ajax are covered. Much of the book is wasted explaining web-development 101 level subjects...

So it wasn't possible for me to give the book 2 different ratings. As a pure beginner's book - this is a 4 or 5 star book. But if you already know HTML, HTTP, DOM, and CSS -- then this book becomes a 2 star Ajax book because it teaches so little about Ajax.

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not for experienced web developers, May 8, 2006

By	Sumanth Kumar - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was casually browsing Ajax books in the local Borders store, and was pleasantly surprised to find Head Rush Ajax. Having been a great fan of Head First Design Patterns, I decided to buy Head Rush Ajax on the spot. But I have to say I was a tad disappointed, and returned the book.

Likes:
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1. For people new to the Head First teaching approach, there's a high probability that they will like and embrace this style. People already familiar with it will know what to expect and won't be disappointed.

2. Each major concept of Ajax (Asynchronous requests, GET, POST, XML, DOM) has been explained in a separate chapter with examples that make sense.

3. The author clearly states that the intention is only to teach the basic minimum needed to understand and build an Ajax application, and he lives up to that promise.

Dislikes:
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1. Even though the author states his intention about teaching the basic minimum early on, he takes far too many pages to do the same. An experienced web developer can easily get all that he/she can from this book in a single day of reading. At the end, I was left with the feeling "Is that it? For all these pages?"

2. On a few occasions, I felt the Head First approach had been stretched way beyond limit. The notion of repeating a piece of information so that it sticks in the brain has been done one time too many. It has been done right in Head First Design Patterns, but not here.

102 of 116 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good first book on Ajax in the "Head First" tradition, April 10, 2006

By	calvinnme "Texan refugee" (Fredericksburg, Va) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

Asynchronous JavaScript And XML, or its acronym, Ajax, is a Web development technique for creating interactive web applications. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire Web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user makes a change. This is meant to increase the Web page's interactivity, speed, and usability.
The Ajax technique uses a combination of:
1. XHTML (or HTML), CSS, for marking up and styling information.
2. The DOM accessed with a client-side scripting language, especially ECMAScript implementations like JavaScript and JScript, to dynamically display and interact with the information presented.
3. The XMLHttpRequest object to exchange data asynchronously with the web server. In some Ajax frameworks and in certain situations, an IFrame object is used instead of the XMLHttpRequest object to exchange data with the web server.
4. XML is commonly used as the format for transferring data back from the server, although any format will work, including preformatted HTML, plain text, JSON and even EBML.
Thus, like DHTML, Ajax is not a technology in itself, but a term that refers to the use of a group of technologies together.
"Head Rush Ajax" uses the head-first approach that has worked so well in books on Java, Design Patterns, and HTML. This book is aimed at teaching designers, JavaScript programmers, and your 'everyday' web developer about Ajax. Many of the other books on Ajax are focused on little widgets and gadgets and tricks. However, none of them seem to actually talk about the web browser, asynchrony, and really focus on what Ajax is. Ajax may be a combination of technologies that have been around for a while, but that hardly means that everybody really gets what all those technologies are. So this book talks about JavaScript, and the web browser, asynchronous requests, and the Document Object Model, rather than blazing through that in 65 pages and spending 400 pages talking about esoteric user interface patterns and server-side languages. This is a book that a normal web developer or even a motivated designer can pick up, and get some light bulbs to turn on.
Readers will have their first working application before they finish Chapter one. This book skips all the hype, talks about what the web browser is, and how it's a far richer and more important player in web applications - and especially in asynchronous applications - than most people realize.
I highly recommend it to readers who are intimidated with the alphabet soup of acronyms and technologies that web development has become.
Amazon does not show the table of contents, so I do that here with a short description of each chapter:
1. Using Ajax - A short overview of the technology.
2. Speaking the Language - Discusses asynchronous JavaScript. Learn how to send requests on different browsers, master "ready states", "status codes", and some extra dynamic HTML tricks.
3. She Blinded Me with Asynchrony - Learn how to send users' requests to the server while users continue to work while waiting on a response.
4. Web Page Forestry - Using the Document Object Model you start writing code that updates web pages on the fly.
4.5 A Second Helping - Shows more DOM via a nifty DOM-based application. Learn some new event handlers, how to change a node's style, and create a user-friendly dynamic application.
5. Saying More with POST - Eliminates send(null) and shows how to send more data to a server in your asynchronous requests.
6. More Than Words Can Say - Talks about using XML in your requests.
7. A Fight To the Finish - Talks about JSON and XML, two different formats for transmitting data in asynchronous requests.
A.1 Extras - Ajax toolkits
A.2 Ajax and DOM Utilities - Utility code that may have seemed advanced when you first saw it in the book.