Ajax for Web Application Developers (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: singleton pattern, object notation, client error, Extending the Engine, Server-Side Interaction, Data Reflection (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Reusable components and patterns for Ajax-driven applications

 

Ajax is one of the latest and greatest ways to improve users’ online experience and create new and innovative web functionality. By allowing specific parts of a web page to be displayed without refreshing the entire page, Ajax significantly enhances the experience of web applications. It also lets web developers create intuitive and innovative interaction processes.

 

Ajax for Web Application Developers provides the in-depth working knowledge of Ajax that web developers need to take their web applications to the next level. The book shows how to create an Ajax-driven web application from an object-oriented perspective, and it includes discussion of several useful Ajax design patterns.

 

This detailed guide covers the creation of connections to a MySQL database with PHP 5 via a custom Ajax engine and shows how to gracefully format the response with CSS, JavaScript, and XHTML while keeping the data tightly secure. It also covers the use of four custom Ajax-enabled components in an application and how to create each of them from scratch.

 

The final section of the book combines the individual code examples and techniques from earlier chapters of the book into one larger, Ajax-driven application–an internal web mail application that can be used in any user-based application, such as a community-based web application. Readers will learn not only how to create and use their own reusable Ajax components in this application

but also how to connect their components to any future Ajax applications that they might build.

 

Web Development/Ajax/JavaScript

 

$34.99 USA / $43.99 CAN / £24.99 Net UK

 

About the Author

Kris Hadlock has been a contract web developer and designer since 1996. He is a featured

columnist and writer for InformIT and numerous web design magazines. He is

also the founder of Studio Sedition, a web application development firm, and is the

cofounder of 33Inc, the company responsible for DashboardHQ. He maintains a blog

called Designing with Code, which focuses on web application development from a design

perspective and often features useful code snippets to help enhance web applications.You

can find all of the above and more about Kris on his website at www.krishadlock.com.

 

 

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Sams; 1 edition (November 9, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672329123
• ISBN-13: 978-0672329128
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #391,671 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #16 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Networking > Networks, Protocols & APIs > ISDN
  #24 in	Books > Professional & Technical > Engineering > Telecommunications > Digital
  #30 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > Books & Reading > Online Books

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars New to Ajax? You may want to look elsewhere ..., December 13, 2006

By	James Skemp "JamesRSkemp.com" (Madison, WI United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've been working on the Web for a handful+ of years, but save for a brief stunt back in the late 90s, I haven't had much use for JavaScript (with the exception of a few one/two-liners). As such, I came to this book as a new-comer to Ajax.

I also like to learn by way of example, instead of explanation, so code examples are a big plus, if not a requirement.

Unfortunately, from this background, my expectations for this book appear to have been set too high. Granted, it may be because of the lack of full examples in the book (and that they are not available online - more on this momentarily). In fact, that's probably the only thing holding me back.

There's minor errors in code in the book as well, but that's to be expected, and a second edition/printing will fix most of these. By itself, this shouldn't hold you back.

But as a beginner's resource, I'm not sure that this is the book you'd want to pick up. I actually recommend that you take a look elsewhere, particularly online, for how to start with Ajax.

Once you've got the basics down, then you can take a look at this book, as it does provide from very good tips as far as keeping your code standardized.

Had I been the first reviewer, I would have given this book four stars. Since I was not, I have decided to give it three. This is because I feel it's a good book, but not for as large an audience as you may think, based upon reading the description. Again, I feel that this book is more for if you've worked with Ajax, but not in a standard/formal way.


Regarding the code I mentioned above, while it's true that there is a zip file of the code files, I don't feel that it truly contains all of the necessary code. Again, keep in mind that I like to work with full code examples, especially when we're talking about JavaScript (since code is sometimes required in the HEAD, and sometimes not).

I have another Developer's Library book, PHP and MySQL Web Development (the Third Edition), so that's part of why my expectations may have been so high. But, I wasn't expecting the amount of full code that the ColdFusion MX 7 'blue books' provides. ;)

Even if you don't have a working application, let me see where you, the author, are at the end of a section or chapter, even if we're just creating one new file and/or adding code to an existing/new file. This goes for whether you write online or not. If there's code in a chapter, and it's not a snippet, than I'd like to see how the full document's code looks.

I don't care that it's not a complete application, I just may want to have your code on screen while I read through the chapter.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars No customer service, March 27, 2007

By	P. Howley "open source sauce" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Bought the book, liked the author's intent but I ran into one big problem. No source code for the book. I emailed the publisher last week and heard zero back from them.

Note to publishers: Take care of your readers.

I'm afraid customer service is dead. Maybe it has been outsourced.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kris shows you engineering side of the AJAX, March 29, 2007

By	N. Gok "WebDev" (Bensalem, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have attended Kris Hadlock's presentation in AJAXWORLD Conference & EXPO last week. I am glad I did because I really wanted to learn how to write reusable JavaScript libraries in my projects. His book is all about AJAX but engineering side of it. Why? because I found not many books out there show you how to capture server errors and record them for debugging and improvement in your project. Not many books show you how to implement the back-end for your frond-end applications. Not many books give you real-world examples. "
Ajax for Web Application Developers" does all for you. It's very simple to understand Kris' codings and explanations because his book is neatly coded and implemented the coding standards.

SOURCE CODES: Demonstrated examples in the book can be downloaded from the publisher. All you need to do is to create an account.

I personally have many AJAX books in my library but specifically liked "Ajax for Web Application Developers".

I strongly recommend it to those who are willing to learn in an easy way to create reusable JavaScript object-oriented libraries and understand the AJAX object methodology.

Good luck