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Head Rush Ajax (Head First) By Brett McLaughlin ( O'Reilly Media, Inc. )
Release Date: 2006-03-28
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List Price: $39.99
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Product Description
Sick of creating web sites that reload every time a user moves the mouse? Tired of servers that wait around to respond to users' requests for movie tickets? It sounds like you need a little (or maybe a lot of) Ajax in your life. Asynchronous programming lets you turn your own web sites into smooth, slick, responsive applications that make your users feel like they're back on the information superhighway, not stuck on a dial-up backroad. But who wants to take on next-generation web programming with the last generation's instruction book? You need a learning experience that's as compelling and cutting-edge as the sites you want to design. That's where we come in. With Head Rush Ajax, in no time you'll be writing JavaScript code that fires off asynchronous requests to web servers...and having fun doing it. By the time you've taken your dynamic HTML, XML, JSON, and DOM skills up a few notches, you'll have solved tons of puzzles, figured out how well snowboards sell in Vail, and even watched a boxing match. Sound interesting? Then what are you waiting for? Pick up Head Rush Ajax and learn Ajax and asynchronous programming the right way--the way that sticks. If you've ever read a Head First book, you know what to expect: a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works. Head Rush ramps up the intensity with an even faster look and feel. Have your first working app before you finish Chapter 1, meet up with the nefarious PROJECT: CHAOS stealth team, and even settle the question of the Top 5 Blues CDs of all time. Leave boring, clunky web sites behind with 8-tracks and hot pants--and get going with next-generation web programming. "If you thought Ajax was rocket science, this book is for you. Head Rush Ajax puts dynamic, compelling experiences within reach for every web developer." -- Jesse James Garrett, Adaptive Path "A 'technology-meets-reality' book for web pioneers on the cutting edge." -- Valentin Crettaz, CTO, Condris Technologies
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 Newbies need the code that's in the book to work - this doesn't.
The teaching style is light and humorous and that's great and all (though definitely aimed heavily at 20-somethings), but when the code examples simply don't work, glib doesn't cut it any more. In a beginner's guide book the code must be solid, even more solid than a book aimed at experts, because the beginner doesn't have the knowledge base an expert would have to figure out obvious flaws. Unfortunately, what this book is presenting as valid working code contains major flaws.
This is the kind of book where you start doing the exercises and think "Oh, I can get this", then you end up banging your head on your desk because it seems so easy that you should be getting it, but nothing you do works. Then you lift the code verbatim from the book (and its *known* errata) and realize it also just doesn't work. Hmmm. Then you find reviews and blog postings complaining that the code doesn't work. Then you wonder how well the people that rated the book at 4 or 5 stars know the author...
In all fairness, the cute presentation does give a feel for the *conceptual* basis of the subject, but don't expect to come away from the book with anything concrete that you can set into a functional web project, unless the code has been re-written in a later edition or on the web.
Hopefully Head First's other Ajax book is a lot better to make amends for this lemon, or else I may have to give up on this series. That would be a shame. I agree with the series' stated educational precepts. Learning should be engaging, thought-provoking and fun, but folks, the code needs to work(!) or else it quickly stops being fun.
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 Notice the "rush" in the title... ( brent_knight )
Notice the rest of the books in this series are all "Head First ...", but this one is "Head Rush ...". It was an alright introductory book at the time it was published, but there are now better choices. I assume it has been replaced in the O'Reilly / Head-First lineup by the recent "Head First Ajax" (seriously, I'm not kidding ... this is reminiscent of them remaking The Hulk, again).
Reviewing this book in a vacuum I'd say its strength is its very thorough, very tutorial, very well-illustrated coverage of the lifecycle of an XMLHttpRequest. Grokking asynchronous, callback-based programming is one of those quantum leaps in understanding ... like learning what a pointer is. So having a tutorial available is great. But I could swear that there were two chapters in a row that covered exactly the same example.
And does anyone know how I'm supposed to choose amongst these titles in the same series: "Head Rush Ajax (Head First)", "Head First Ajax", "Head First Javascript"?
Other worthy choices:
- "The Book of Javascript", Thau
- "Ajax: The Definitive Guide", Holdener
- "Adding AJAX", Powers
- "Building a Web Site with Ajax: Visual QuickProject Guide", Ullman
Now, go build some Web 2.0 thingy that replaces the Desktop OS!
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 A fun read, but don't use it on the job... ( graveyardscom )
The book is humourous and a pleasant read, and a fun way to learn Ajax in your easy chair by the fireplace.
But *don't* try using it on the job.
I tried building a real-world application with this as my guide - as I went through each chapter, I'd use the methods conveyed by the examples to build my own project. This went well until I got to the section on POST requests. As before, I adapted the example to my own project - and it didn't work. The problem is that the code on page 299 is flat-out wrong, and they don't tell you this until page 308 - after a several-page diversion into another subject. Then, on page 308, they finally reveal that on page 299 they had skipped an essential (but non-obvious) step.
Meanwhile, I had wasted about half an hour wondering why the back-end application wasn't receiving any of the form contents, putting in javascript in the front-end to display what it was sending before it sent it, putting logging in the back end to dump the inputs to files for analysis.
My copy now has "WRONG" written in one-inch letters across page 299.
(I was reminded of an episode of M*A*S*H. An unexploded bomb was in the camp, and Hawkeye was trying to defuse it while Radar read him the instructions - slowly, one step at a time - from a safe distance. The instructions were something like "Cut the red wire. But if there are also two black wires, you must not cut the red wire.")
Authors, I can appreciate your writing style and your general method of teaching - but please be aware that some programmers like to test our applications incrementally, and leaving a booby trap in the code just wastes our time.
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Avoid like the plague!
A conceptually solid intro to AJAX plagued by errors in the code samples -- see http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/headra/errata/headra.unconfirmed. Even some of the sample ajax apps running on the headfirstlabs site don't work! For instance, visit http://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hrajax/chapter02/breakneck/pizza.html, type in a phone#, and watch as the php incorrectly dumps out all the addresses in the mock database. Did the author even bother to test out the sample apps?
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 We all learn in different ways ( redrover )
Some people prefer dense reference-like texts while others get droopy eyelids after just a few pages. Face it--this is complex material we are trying to learn. The O'Reilly Head First series has really figured out how to present concepts that can be difficult to understand, especially for people who are new to the field, in a way that makes it easy to learn.
If you are new to Ajax or if you have some experience with it but want to fill in the gaps, this is a great book.
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