JavaScript Web Applications: jQuery Developers' Guide to Moving State to the Client 1st Edition

by Alex MacCaw (Author)

31 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-1449303518

ISBN-10: 144930351X

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Building rich JavaScript applications that bring a desktop experience to the Web requires moving state from the server to the client side—not a simple task. This hands-on book takes proficient JavaScript developers through all the steps necessary to create state-of-the-art applications, including structure, templating, frameworks, communicating with the server, and many other issues.

Throughout the book, you'll work with real-world example applications to help you grasp the concepts involved. Learn how to create JavaScript applications that offer a more responsive and improved experience.

Use the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern, and learn how to manage dependencies inside your application
Get an introduction to templating and data binding
Learn about loading remote data, Ajax, and cross-domain requests
Create realtime applications with WebSockets and Node.js
Accept dropped files and upload data with progress indicators
Use major frameworks and libraries, including jQuery, Spine, and Backbone
Write tests and use the console to debug your applications
Get deployment best practices, such as caching and minification

About the Author

Alex MacCaw is a Ruby/JavaScript developer & entrepreneur. He has written a JavaScript framework, Spine and developed major applications including Taskforce and Socialmod, as well as a host of open source work. He speaks at Ruby/Rails conferences in NYC, SF and Berlin. In addition to programming he is currently traveling round the world with a Nikon D90 and surfboard.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (September 13, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 278 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 144930351X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1449303518
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.02 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 0.6 x 9.19 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,394,132 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,647 in JavaScript Programming (Books)
- #2,893 in Software Design & Engineering
- #6,359 in Software Development (Books)

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kevin s. templer

Outdated so be careful

Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2013

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The book is interesting and well written. Also, I really liked the simple examples. But like most things in the tech world, it can get outdated.

While all the examples and everything work if you use his libraries and versions of backbone.js, his version of backbone.js is 0.3.0 while the current version is 1.1.0!

I wasted a lot of time trying to work through the examples but using my own project's needs. For example the "bind" call in Chapter 12 is actually now "listenTo". And the "refresh" event doesn't work, I had to use the "sync" event.

Also the author's "spine" library no longer looks supported.

When you're learning something new, it's always a challenge. This is particularly difficult if you have a library that is outdated, and the text refers to that outdated library.

Unfortunately, I didn't find out in time before I could return the book.

I would look for something that is more modern and uses some latest version of backbone.js.

9 people found this helpful

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Guy 80s

You just might learn a boatload of stuff...

Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2012

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I think this can be an incredibly helpful book if you hit it at the right stage in your JavaScript (JS) learning process, even if you don't need to implement full-blown MVC for your immediate needs. I can honestly say that I've learned as much, and probably more, from working through the core of this book (Chapters 1-5) than I have from any other single JS book.

But, you need to be at the right stage... which is basically, when you can follow the book, although it may take a bit of effort. If you're already a ninja, you probably don't need to read the book at all, unless you simply want to be exposed to another POV. And, for a lot of non-ninja, the book will be too advanced. Luckily, O'Reilly put the entire first chapter on-line so you can judge for yourself.

Chapter 1 is no namby pampy intro. In the chapter McCaw defines a constructor function used to create constructor functions that emulate classes in languages which support classes natively. He also includes a useful discussion of how the 'this' context switches in JS and how to control it with bind or by defining a jQ-like proxy method. Later design patterns have some similarity to what he does in chapter 1 (using Object.create instead of constructors), so if you can follow this chapter, you're probably ready to take on the book.

I'd describe the audience for the book as developers who've already built an app, or at least added fairly complex functionality to web pages and are comfortable with prototypal inheritance, closures on inner functions, call/apply and who know basic DOM scripting. Additionally, you may well have a sneaking suspicion that although your apps work, they're not designed as cleanly as they could be. If you're part of that audience, you just might learn a boatload of stuff as you follow McCaw's thinking as to how to design large-scale JS apps. Despite the sub-title, you don't really need to know jQuery (jQ) all that well, as long as you're somewhat familiar with it and the way it chains methods. One of the nice things about the book is that McCaw often gives you the plain old JavaScript (PoJS) for some of the basic methods he adds to his template objects and constructors, before switching to jQ for convenience. For example, after chapter 1 you'll have the PoJS equivalents for jQ's extend and proxy so it's easy to create a PoJS version for say the Model object or the Controller object which he defines later. For other jQ methods used in examples, you should be at the level where you can figure out what jQ is doing and write the equivalent in PoJS if that's what you want to do.

Some of the other reviews have touched on a few negatives, but to my mind they're not enough to downgrade the book. Occasionaly, the discussion seems to jump over an explanatory detail, but if you make a lab page that links to the book errata page and download the code for the examples, you should be able to fill in any gaps. I found the first five chapters fascinating, and chapters 6-13 useful and concise roll ups on various topics like dependency management, debugging and various libraries. In addition there are appendices that do a quick survey of jQuery and CSS3.

The problem with learning JS in the contemporary landscape is that what used to be advanced, even esoteric, technique is commonplace now. If you go back and look at the Sitepoint JavaScript Anthology or PPK on JavaScript which came out ~2005/2006, you'll see relatively straightforward and easy to understand JS and DOM scripting. But, as Crockford noted "JavaScript is Lisp in C's clothing" and if you don't have a theoretical background in functional programming, it can be very challenging to follow the ninja use of function scope to create modules, encapsulate values in closures etc... Wrapping your head around the core of this book can really deepen your understanding of JS.

19 people found this helpful

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Jeff Benshetler

Must-have book for all JavaScript Programmers

Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2013

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This book is immensely practical while still teaching concepts. It is far clearer than, "JavaScript: The Good Parts", which you can skip entirely if you read this book. The author looks at how to use JavaScript in the large, not just showing snippets in isolation. The only deductions I would make are for the author's promotion of his own library, Spine.js, which, even with this book, is poorly documented.

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Haelix

Fantastic Intermediate JavaScript book!

Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2012

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This is not a book for fresh, new beginning coders. That said, this is the perfect book for anyone who has experience coding and you want to get into JS, or anyone who has been in JS and want to kick things up. I've been a php/AS3 coder for 5+ years and have started doing things with backbone.js for work. The first few chapters of this book are just packed with great info on JavaScript and MVC in JS. In fact, the first chapter jumps right in with MVC and Classes in JS. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

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Richard Chen

Spot on

Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2012

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With 3 firm examples of projects which take you through the MVC philosophy in Javascript, you can find no firmer way to learn MVC in a way that is relevant to every browser. Typically concise O'Reilly writing & editing style aides one's rush to know this concept as one typically reads this when the job requires it.

One person found this helpful

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dugdod

quick read with good examples

Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2015

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quick read with good examples

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eirikhm

Excellet book

Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2012

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If you are looking for a way to properly structure JS-code in your project this is the book to get. I spent quite some time reviewing JS-frameworks like Spine, Knockout, Ember, Backbone etc, and was not happy with any of them for various reasons. This book helped me properly understand what I was looking for, and how to set this up without using a major framework with excessive features.

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Viorel

A must read book if you are a web developer

Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2013

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A good book on JavaScript with nice examples. Good introduction to MVC approach in JavaScript, HTML5 and much more. Alex MacCaw is the author of spine.js library which is also presented in the book.

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William Moore

MVC in Javascript

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 16, 2012

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I read most of this book on my phone's kindle app, so I kinda skipped the code samples since they didn't layout very well on the small screen. However, I got the main themes that were covered as I went along. These were really just building up to the author introducing his own Javascript MVC framework (Spine) which features all the previously discussed concepts. If you really want to use all these ideas in your work, then the chances are that you're going to want to use Spine OR Backbone.js (a similar framework which has been around a bit longer and was the inspiration for Spine).

Before reading this book, I wasn't aware of the existence or function of these MVC Javascript frameworks. Now I've started experimenting with Backbone.js and it seems like these frameworks are the future of large Javascript apps.

So this book has been a great introduction to a new way of writing Javascript apps. However, this field is moving very fast, so various things get out of date: Spine has evolved to use CoffeeScript (not mentioned in this book atall) and the templating library mentioned earlier in the book has also been discontinued.

2 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Useful for transition from ActionScript 3

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 20, 2013

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I came form AS3 background and I couldn't make my head around the mess that pure JS is. This book was really helpful for someone like me who has experience with more structured language and want to learn the real life practices of adding a structure to JS code.

Heinrich Göbl

Eine Goldgrube an Informationen

Reviewed in Germany on December 29, 2011

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Offensichtlich hat dieses Buch jemand geschrieben, der sein Handwerk versteht, sehr viel Erfahrung hat und oft genug darüber reflektiert hat, wie man es gut oder noch besser machen kann.
Auf einzelne Inhalte einzugehen, würde den Rahmen deutlich sprengen. Jedenfalls bekommt man gut leserlich und verständlich einen Überblick über sehr viele Aspekte der Erstellung von Web-Applikationen, die sich hauptsächlich am Client abspielen. Für Leute, die bisher typische Webanwendungen mit PHP oder Java programmiert haben, steckt jede Menge interessanter Informationen in diesem Buch. Aber auch "alte JavaScript-Hasen" werden sich bestimmt nicht langweilen, besonders wenn sie noch keine weitreichende Erfahrung mit "echten" JavaScript Applikationen haben.
In einem Untertitel heißt es zwar: "jQuery Developers' Guide to Moving State to the Client". Ich würde das Buch aber auch den (wenigen) Leuten empfehlen, die jQuery gar nicht einsetzen. Themen wie Model-Classes, Observer-Pattern, Controller, Dependency Management, WebSockets, Testing/Debugging und Deploying sind für Nicht-jQuery-Programmierer genauso nützlich.

6 people found this helpful

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Mark

Everything you need to get started writing decent Web Applications

Reviewed in Germany on April 18, 2013

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You shouldn't be a complete novice to JavaScript to dive into this book. But after reading a book like "Maintainable JavaScript" or "JavaScript: The Good Parts", to get a basic understanding of what's going on, you'll be fine.

"JavaScript Web Applications" has been the perfect book for me, because it is driven by real world problems and uses real world frameworks (jQuery) in the examples. It is very well written, explains the MVC architecture really well and drives you away from writing spaghetti code JavaScript and/or jQuery. I highly recommend this book for everyone who wants to know how to architect real world JavaScript applications.

Nathaniel Brown

Sample code provided

Reviewed in Canada on May 25, 2020

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Had the code I wanted to log events on a mobile phone for UNITE ™ found on GitHub.

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JavaScript Web Applications: jQuery Developers' Guide to Moving State to the Client 1st Edition

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