The Definitive Guide to Lift: A Scala-based Web Framework (Expert's Voice in Open Source) 1st ed. Edition

The book is neither well-written nor well-organized. There are a number of ways to introduce a complex piece of software, including carefully explaining the principles and then tackling examples where the principles are put to work; or having tiny self-contained examples that illustrate a key point and then expanding. This does neither, and all too often throws the reader into the middle of a huge "minimal" example from which one must work one's way out. It is better than nothing, but not much. A pity, because Lift is an impressive piece of software.

This book by itself has made me feel dubious about Apress books. I'm familiar with the authors' work through the lift mailing list and can't see how they let Apress publish this in the state it's in. Perhaps they had no choice in the matter. Wait for another book. In the mean time use online resources. As for me, I'm going to throw my copy in the recycling bin even though I could return it. I refuse to inflict this book on someone else.

DON'T BUY.. NO.. DON'T READ IT!

Although English is not my primary language, as an senior software engineer, I've had no problem to read a computer/programming book since 1995 until I met this book.

Primarily, I am a C/C++/Python developer (design a library/module, and implements it). I could write a XML parser from scratch in C/Python, I can write elisp code in Emacs. But have no knowledge on Java/Erlang/Php/Perl/Ruby. I just finished reading "Programming in Scala" by Martin Odersky and others. I must admit, that it was a great/great book. I can't remember that if I had another book that gives me so much joy like Martin's one.

Back to the point,

In my opinion, this book is not an introduction/tutorial for Lift framework, it's just memo/note for the author himself.

I want to ask to the author, "please, don't write new book in this writing style" and the publisher, "please don't publish new book in this writing style ever!" I read a "Practical Common Lisp" from Apress and had a good impression on the publisher until I read ths book.

I expect this book has at least of the quality and style of "Django Tutorial" in Django's site. Am I expecting too much? No. I think not. At least Django people provide it freely in their website. If the author want to earn money from this book, at least it should contain better contents than what Django turial provided.

In Chapter 1, you'll learn how to *download* "hello, world" type of Lift project. I mean "download", not "write".

In Chapter 2, this book starts a small lift project (called PocjetChange), and shows you several code blocks and explains what the block does. Still, it does not show the whole context, so that once read, you'll know what the lift does in those code blocks, but you'll not learn how to create even simple lift project.

In Chapter 3. you'll learn that Lift has a templates, URL rewrite, Snippets, etc. Again, you'll see several lift code blocks but you cannot get the whole picture as a project.

Whenever I finished to read a chapter, this question rings in my head:
"Okay, now I know several features of Lift, but how can I start/write from the scratch?".

After reading ~Chapter 3, I wanted to give up. But there are no good Lift tutorials nor a book other than this crap, so I have no other choice so far. *sigh*.

For me, reading this book is just like... to force a person to read a Linux kernel book, who has no knowledge of C/OS/Unix/Linux. Or reading a man page of X functions without reading a proper X programming books.

If you just finished to read a Scala book, and want to learn Lift framework, don't buy it. More speicifically, don't read it, it will not save your time, it will make you more confused, and more dazed.

I guess, that this book is for Lift people, those who already accustomed to use Lift, in case of not to forget how to use it, or for a manger with technical background, who doesn't need to write Lift framework him/herself, if they want to know what Lift provides/ and what Lift does not provide.

Since I am not very comfortable to write something in English, even I bought a lot of computer books from Amazon, I had almost no experience writing a review. Only this book make me mad enough to write a review in English.

There is on-going new book, "Lift in Action" by Timothy Perrett from Manning Publications. (See [...]) Only purchased customers can read the pre-published material, I can't say anything. But I read several comments from others in their forum that it fills the gap between Scala and Lift. I'm expecting that book now.

Five stars for the authors, and zero star (if that was possible) for the publisher.

This book is a rip-off. The authors have done a great work but the publisher has provided no value except putting the book on paper. No index! The appendices mentionned in the text are missing from the book!

Also, the title is a blatant lie, 'The Definitive Guide to Lift: A Scala-based Web Framework' is just a snapshot of an ongoing work. If Lift seems mostly stable, the book needs more work. Nothing definitive here even if the authors have done a great work.

The up to date pdf is available on the web with a more modest title "exploring lift". This is the first apress book I bought and probably the last. Shame on apress.

You need to know scala to read the either the book or the pdf. Lift seems a great framework.

Using this book to learn Lift is realllllly frustrating!

A book shouldn't be self congratulating. e.g. It shouldn't say things like "As you can see, this makes it very easy to..."!

I just bought the MEAP book and it looks much better.

This book does not deserve such poor reviews.

While I agree it was rushed to publication, it provides valuable examples and description of an otherwise poorly documented framework. If you're trying to learn Lift, you can't afford to be picky with your documentation. Not every section of The Definitive Guide to Lift is equally clear, or equally useful, but there's plenty of good content there if you're trying to get a site up and running. If you're an experienced Lift practitioner this book will be a disappointment, as it's anything but "definitive."

For me, reading this book alone was not enough to learn Lift. I had to read blogs, the API ScalaDocs, parts of Lift in Action, the included example app on GitHub, and Lift's source code before I felt even marginally comfortable with the framework. That said, without The Definitive Guide to Lift, my task would probably have been twice as difficult. So that's probably how this book should be viewed, as one of a few valuable Lift resources.