Reviews for Ajax: Your Visual Blueprint for Creating Rich Internet Applications

1. Ajax is better than this

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, August 12th, 2008

   I bought this book because it was the cheapest available at the time. I wish I hadn't.
   
   Apart from the dreadful format - the fonts are way too small and the examples are spread over two sections with different titles - it was really no more than a very lightweight guide to the Google APIs and a half-hearted list of Javascript frameworks.
   
   I haven't learned anything from this book. I learned from the internet instead using online tutorials with live examples.
   
   If you want to learn, for example, the Google Maps API then just go online and read it - it's remarkably easy to understand.
   
   I won't buy another book from this publisher.

2. AJAX Learning guide

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, October 12th, 2006

   If you are new to AJAX and Javascript and need to learn all the basics, then this is a great starter book.
   
   Other authors could learn a lot from how this book is structured. Each exercise is short and to the point, and displays the results in both graphical and code format as opposed to just a bunch of code that that leaves you wondering what the web page should look like.
   
   The short exercises mean that you can easily stop and start this book in easy stages, gradually progressing to the more complex exercises in the latter parts of the book.
   
   It teaches you the basics of javascript and AJAX and then slowly moves to more complex examples. Do not expect at the end of this book you will be a complete AJAX expert (the book does however cover several different AJAX frameworks), but you will be ready to delve into the complexities of your chosen AJAX framework, and start producing AJAX enabled web pages.
   
   My only criticism is the small print in some of the graphical web page examples. I ended up using one of these small magnifying viewers, but this was a small price to pay for a well structured and easy to read training manual.