Sams Teach Yourself Ajax in 10 Minutes

by Phil Ballard

Sams Teach Yourself Ajax in 10 Minutes is a concise introduction to the basics of building Ajax applications and the architecture and operation of these applications. You will learn the techniques... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0672328682
• ISBN13: 9780672328688
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Sams
• Length: 230 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.7" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Awesome Introduction to Ajax!

I have programmed in PHP, and done a lot of work with HTML and CSS (seeing as they go together well with PHP) - but have been really curious about this new Ajax stuff. I have poked at JavaScript before, but mostly just copying and pasting code from code snippet sites. I understand the concept of XML, but not too much about it. So, I sent for this book to see what the hub-bub was about, and now I have a good understanding on how to use this programming language, if you want to call it that, for more impressive websites! The book does not give you extensive background on PHP, but rather a brief intro, and the code you need to put on your web server to interact with the rest of the system. JavaScript is explained a bit more, as this is the heart of Ajax, and XML is explained pretty well too. You are not going to master any of these languages from this book, but rather learn enough about them to get you started and building some working Ajax programs. Ajax is not really a language, but is a method of using JavaScript and a Server-Side language like PHP with the possibility to use XML for more database type data, if you need it, and constructing dynamic content for your web page to load. Without having to load a new page, and have PHP build all the changes. This book guides you through building a clock that is updates when you click a button, an RSS news reader, and a few other simple programs that might not seem like a huge accomplishment, but are meant to give you an understanding of how it works so you can make something out of it. It hands you a wrench, and shows you how to bolt and unbolt things, but it is up to you as to what you go build, or destroy. The book is not meant to be finished in it's entirety in 10 minutes. It is broken up into sections meant to take only about 10 minutes to read. Instead of having to dedicate a good hour or two to reading, I could easily read parts of this book here and there, between tasks at work, and in those times where I have a bit of time free, but not enough to do anything major. That was really a benefit for me. Learning, cut up into smaller bits, for people on the go! I found this book to be exactly what I needed to step into the world of Ajax, and if you have experience with some PHP, and some JavaScript, and want to ad a little pizazz to your web pages, then I would really recommend this book to get you started!

A great book for the novice

This book sums up the fundamentals of AJAX and its methodology in a clear concise manner, following the principles of the Sam's series. Although the 'refresher material' in the beginning chapters is dummied down a little to much it delivers a solid foundation of what you need to understand to grasp AJAX. Unfortunately the author does not cover AJAX pitfalls with as much vigor. A great start for the beginner but maybe a little to low on the totem pole for developers concerned with real world problems like using the back button or fall back techniques if users have JavaScript disabled.

A succinct introduction, better than many larger books.

This tiny book is very succinct and full of spunk...all around, the best bang for the buck, and small enough to fit in a backpack. I recommend buying it if you are strongly interested in Ajax. It has a very good chapter near the end showing how to call a SOAP web service using Ajax.

Good cheap introduction

Who is the author? Phil Ballard is behind themousewhisperer and crackajax. Description The small book of some 220 pages has four parts. The first part resumes what you need to know before doing any AJAX: HTML, HTTP, JavaScript, PHP, XML. Explains javascript-access to XML DOM. The second part introduces AJAX. AJAX is motivated by a better user experience that is more like a desktop application and by saving bandwidth. Phil goes on to introduce the central part of AJAX, the XMLHttpRequest Object, with simple examples returning html-snippets as text. The third part show how to use the XMLHttpRequest object with text and with XML, asynchronously, with SOAP, and lists some gotchas. The SOAP example constructs the SOAP requests directly in javascript and takes the SOAP response apart in the same way. The fourth part briefly recommends three toolkits for AJAX programming: prototype.js, by Sam Stephenson, which provides useful DHTML functions and ajax-encapsulation. Rico, which goes on top of prototype.js, which lets you register page elements for manipulation from an AJAX-response. Also gives drag & drop, which is not AJAX, but often will be followed by an AJAX communication of the user action to the server. XOAD, PHP server side AJAX support, by Stanimir Angeloff. It makes PHP classes callable from Javascript, and can change page elements from PHP. Opinion The book is generally well written, although sometimes I would have preferred to be told more clearly what the problem and the main idea of the proposed solution are, before being shown the details of the solution. The book really starts from first principles. It may seem a little slow sometimes, but that is good. An example for slowness is that there are several repitions of browser-independent XMLHttpRequest creation. It is not tied to any framework or library and lets you understand what is behind the libraries by experimenting directly with the XMLHttpRequest object. There is a little use of PHP on the server. In the explanations, I feel that UML sequence diagrams would have helped, for example on page 79. With AJAX, it is important to understand what methods are called, when they are called, and where they are. I like that the authour seems in favour of using AJAX for returning html text, and of using the simple REST philosophy, when these simple techniques are sufficient for a particular design. Too often people get tempted into using more complex technologies without being clear about whether they are really necessary. The SOAP example constructs the SOAP envelope manually and takes the SOAP response apart manually. Of course, SOAP is a lot of work if you do it that way! Realistically, must use a library that encapsulates the SOAP protocol and lets you communicate in terms of objects. SOAP is remote procedure call. It is only advisable to use SOAP if you really need the generality of remote procedure call and if you do, SOAP is a better option than making your own protocol. F

Good general overview of AJAX

I was looking for some basic information on AJAX, such as the XMLHttpRequest object. I was not aware that simple HTM (or any other text) could be passed back from the web server, now I know and that's very useful to know, since those are more useful to me that XML. This book gave me the general basic info I needed. Now that I've got a working knowledge of AJAX, I can find another book with more detail for more advanced uses of the capability. I think the book wasted space with it's attempt at an intro to html and intro to javascript. I'm not sure that anyone unfamiliar with these aspects of web development needs to be tackling AJAX, because they're probably not the least bit knowledgeable of server-side technology. I would have appreciated the server-side scripting to be ASP instead of PHP (with which I'm not familiar), but that's a minor issue since the scrips are small and easy enough to grasp what they're doing.