Ajax: The Definitive Guide: Interactive Applications for the Web

While "Ajax: The Definitive Guide" is certainly exhaustive, it's hard to have confidence in a text so riddled with errors. Other O'Reilly titles I've purchased in the last few years suffer from the same problem: very poor copy editing. In a "Definitive Guide," this is inexcusable.Furthermore, he author's decision to rely on the Prototype framework is misguided. It saves a few lines of code per page, but one expects a "Definitive Guide" to define, explore, and use the actual objects and methods defined by the language itself, not those defined in one of many, many external libraries.It is also somewhat comical to read on page 10 that developers, rather than browser vendors, "are to blame for not adopting standards" and that they are "stuck with the mentality of the 1990s, when browser quirks mode, coding hacks, and other tricks were the only things that allowed code to work in all environments," and then to read on page 191 that "Yes, there are always caveats in the world of standards compliance" and that "Example 7-2 will not work in Internet Explorer because Internet Explorer does not support the CSS2 rules that are used to make this work." And on page 187 that "Internet Explorer does not natively support :hover on elements other than <a>. For this reason, instead of using the CSS that will work for all other browsers, we must use this...."(It's hard not to laugh, too, at a sentence that begins with "To take the file menu example fully to the Web 2.0 level....")By the time all the errata are corrected and a second edition issued, it might be appropriate for the author to wag his finger at developers who can't yet afford to to be totally standards-pure, but by then the faddish jargon will seem very dated.And until O'Reilly starts employing copy editors, I'm not buying the first edition of any title they release.

The book is a flaming disappointment.It is way too verbose, lacking in good and working examples, and essentially does a very poor job. I have taught front-end and server-side programming for at least 10 years while working full-time as a systems developer and have to register my lack of enthusiasm for this book, hoping to dissuade future possible purchasers. There are other great books here on Amazon just waiting to lead you through Ajax programming.Ajax is a very straightforward topic that can be introduced in three pages with a one-page code example! Not once did the book offer a code example in the print that would perform as an example of Ajax.This book goes off the rails in verbosity and even obfuscates the downloadable code examples, making them a separate project just to get them to work. This was truly one of the worse examples of explaining Ajax to both experts and beginners.I have over 40 years of front-end and server programming experience and am embarrassed to have the book on my bookshelf.

I got this book to learn a little AJAX; I'm often curiuos how stuff works behind the scenes. I've been a fan of this series for years and loved  JavaScript: The Definitive Guide , but I found this really hard to get through. It's sort of like reading the phone book, full of information, but dry as a bone. If you don't have a pretty good knowledge of XML, CSS, and XHTML already you won't learn enough here to help you.Let me be clear, this is not a book that will teach you some AJAX tricks for your website. I find that a better way to learn, by seeing the little bits and then building to bigger and better things. I made it about half way through before I just lost interest and it's been sitting on the table ever since gathering dust ever since. If you're a devloper or really know what you're doing already and want to gain some better knowledge or some new ideas, then this is a good book. If you're just starting out or a casual user then you should definitely start with a different book.For CSS,  CSS: The Missing Manual  was a well written and easy read. If that series ever does an AJAX book or just for learning the supporting pieces of AJAX bit by bit, you might try those books.

This is not the book to get if you are just beginning with JavaScript and/or CSS. The book is packed with rather advanced JS and CSS, and I have to say that this is the main focus. Not much explaining Ajax rather than advanced CSS I think.I can't just understand why the writer have so much focus on using frameworks in this book. The main goal should be teaching Ajax.Guess this book come in handy after some years of experience with JS and CSS.

This book is terribly outdated now. The advent of jQuery makes much of the authors code seem overly complex these days. For anyone new to JavaScript based web design, the first few hundred pages are a good introduction to working with ajax, but after that much of the technology outlined in this book can be achieved via much easier methods with the frameworks available today.

This book was pretty straightforward and clear in its explanation of the various pieces of Ajax. This portion of the book only comprises the first 200 pages though so if you're not looking for an Ajax cookbook this isn't the book for you. Also, this book doesn't go through the various Ajax frameworks in any depth.

Too much for somebody that wants to learn fast. Too much information. But if you are bookworm, this book is for you.

If you are looking for a book with thorough treatment of Ajax, you are in the right place. The book does justice to it's title. I appreciate all the code snippets. However, they tend to repititive. When presentig a variation of a code snippet already presented, the author repeats the whole code snippet, instead of just highlighting the differences.

I am a server side developer and I didn't have too much knowledge about Ajax. I haven't finished this book yet but as far as I read it more I enjoy it more. It gives me exactly the information that I need to know. It has a very good style to introduce the reader new concepts and tools that have been created by Ajax. I definitely recommend this book.

The book is huge and full of useful info I am sure but I simply don't have time to read this bible like book

I should have checked the date of publication, it's outdated and currently useless.