Head First Ajax | 
 enlarge | Author: Rebecca Riordan
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $44.99
Buy New: $24.64
You Save: $20.35 (45%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 24741
Format: Illustrated
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 527
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 7.9 x 1.2
ISBN: 0596515782
Dewey Decimal Number: 006.78
EAN: 9780596515782
ASIN: 0596515782
Publication Date: September 2, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: All orders ship same business day via standard shipping (USPS Media Mail) if received by 1 PM CST.
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Product Description
Ajax is no longer an experimental approach to website development, but the key to building browser-based applications that form the cornerstone of Web 2.0. Head First Ajax gives you an up-to-date perspective that lets you see exactly what you can do -- and has been done -- with Ajax. With it, you get a highly practical, in-depth, and mature view of what is now a mature development approach.
Using the unique and highly effective visual format that has turned Head First titles into runaway bestsellers, this book offers a big picture overview to introduce Ajax, and then explores the use of individual Ajax components -- including the JavaScript event model, DOM, XML, JSON, and more -- as it progresses. You'll find plenty of sample applications that illustrate the concepts, along with exercises, quizzes, and other interactive features to help you retain what you've learned.
Head First Ajax covers:
- The JavaScript event model
- Making Ajax requests with XMLHTTPREQUEST objects
- The asynchronous application model
- The Document Object Model (DOM)
- Manipulating the DOM in JavaScript
- Controlling the browser with the Browser Object Model
- XHTML Forms
- POST Requests
- XML Syntax and the XML DOM tree
- XML Requests & Responses
- JSON -- an alternative to XML
- Ajax architecture & patterns
- The Prototype Library
The book also discusses the server-side implications of building Ajax applications, and uses a "black box" approach to server-side components.
Head First Ajax is the ideal guide for experienced web developers comfortable with scripting -- particularly those who have completed the exercises in Head First JavaScript -- and for experienced programmers in Java, PHP, and C# who want to learn client-side programming.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Good book, poor editing January 6, 2009
First, a preface...I like Head First Books. I feel they make great primers for advanced subjects because of their plain-language approach, the playful fun they have, and the focus on the whys as opposed to a cookbook approach.
Now the review (intended for the 1st edition):
The selected content, and the order presented is excellent. I have little to add that hasn't already been shared by previous reviews.
The editing however is laced with errors. I'm only a third through the text so far and have encountered and corrected 6 significant errors in the code. These are all backed up on the HeadFirst errata page, but I have to ask...where was the editor on this book? If I wasn't very familiar with Javascript, much of this code wouldn't work without debugging.
One example as a case in point:
Beginning on page 118, there's a sequence of instructions and code to get you to build a simple tab animation with images. If you build and test the code as written in the text, it has no hope of working as the code was obviously written with different image names than the ones provided with the downloadable code. (the text has you create code [pg.119] to build image filepaths such as "images/beginnersTop.png", when the file it intends to point to is actually "images/beginnersTabActive.png".
The script I'm referring to is intended to be used as an example of bad coding choices...not bad code. It is there to show options for separating behavior from presentation. Despite that, presenting broken code is just not acceptable.
My advice...good book but wait for the next edition when O-Reilly will have hopefully fixed these errors.
And to the editor...you really dropped the ball on this one. A disappointment in an otherwise exemplary series.
 Too much oopspeak December 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have trouble with this book from chapter 1 because I have never thoroughly introduced myself to OOP. Objects are things on my desk or in the front yard or in the kitchen.
Over the years, I have taught myself lotsa languages including pre-OOP Perl.
Problem is: I don't get what thumbs is on page 18 -- is it an array? And I never feel as if I know what's really going on from that point forward.
-- Friendly David
 Very happy with this book. October 28, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I could not put this book down. I have a decent amount of experience with JavaScript and the DOM, etc., but I always thought of AJAX as something alien that would be difficult to understand. It turns out that this is just a different way of using what I already know. The book is very well organized and helps to make the concepts very understandable.
Excellent book October 27, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This was a well organized book to learn from. It presented the ideas in easily understood format with good examples and excercises. The book did a great job of explaining the concepts of .Net and OOPs in general so you can really understand what you are doing and wwhy. It didn't spend half time time (like most do) telling you it's like this in C or it's like this in Java. I would recommend this to anybody wanting to learn C#.
Amazing Book October 24, 2008
In a few minutes, Head First Ajax let you understand the basics of this technology without any trouble. It is a must have for anyone involved on the web development and programming
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