Usually the "for Dummies" books are well, written, humorous and informative. This one, however, needed to go back for some serious editing.

The writing style was stilted and hard to follow, not to mention there were plenty of errors.

But I could overlook that if the content was valuable. Unfortunately, there were many problems with the content in this book.

First, the example code did not match the screen shots. Mostly it was some trivial wording changes, but things like that lower the reader's confidence in the veracity of the book.

Second, the way Holzer steps you through the code is both confusing and a waste of space. He shows a code snippet - but just the lines he's describing. Then the next snippet is the first snippet plus a few more lines (in bold), and on and on, so that you almost never see the entire code file in one piece, and in some cases he doesn't show the entire contents of the file at all.

That wouldn't be so bad, because of course you can download all the examples from the website. The problem is, about half of them don't work, and being an Ajax Dummy, I don't know how to debug them. I tried them in Firefox and Safari, and got the same results in both.

The author and publisher need to go back through this book and revalidate everything, and rewrite the code samples so they're more like every other programming book out there.

The material is great and gave me all I needed to very succesfully utilize Ajax as an add-on in a production application.

This book is for people who know OF Ajax, but want to know more ABOUT Ajax. It walks through the layering of the different technologies that make Ajax what is, and in a very organized, logical, and effective way. The style and humor of the series is present as always, and there are lots of great examples and exercises included.

After completing the book and working on various projects, it becomes less useful and you'll probably want to switch to a more reference-oriented book. For beginners though, this book cannot be beat.

I admit to being a fan of Steve Holzner. The man is an excellent technical writer with a knack for communicating the most complex concepts in simple, concise language.

I had (and still have) no particular interest in Ajax, but because I try to stay conversant with all platforms, I felt that if anyone could explain Ajax quickly, it would be Holzner.

I am not disappointed.

I don't think this book, despite its being a "dummies" title, will do a neophyte much good. If you aren't at least minimally familiar with HTML, Javascript, XML, PHP, CGIt CSS and some other technologies, you'll get lost really fast.

On the other hand, for people who already possess at least some basic knowledge of these technologies, Holzner's book will quickl provide the conceptual framework you need for understanding Ajax.

Jerry

Having never touched any Javascript, XML, PHP, or Ajax, I assumed by the title of the book and the description on the back cover that this would let a complete beginner know everything that is needed to be known about these subjects.

It started out fine, but as the code got more complex, more and more typos started showing up in the code. This was not impossible to remedy, thankfully, since all the code is available as a download on their website. The real problem, however, was digging through each line of code, comparing it to the copy I downloaded from their site, trying to figure out whether the error was my fault or the book's.

Another nagging problem is that after the first couple chapters, the book stops giving you the complete code for each application, expecting you to already know what Javascript needs to be where after reading 100 pages of a "Dummies" book. Even worse, many times it only tells you WHERE to write said code, not WHY you write it; several lines are not explained at all, which makes remembering what goes where that much more difficult.

By the time I got to Chapter 4, the typos, assumptions, errors, and several other problems forced me to give up on the book, return it to the store, and resort to simply reading more in-depth tutorials online for free.

Sure, I could just copy the code straight from their download files and be done with it, but why bother copy/pasting something this complex without really understanding it, and paying thirty dollars to do so?

I'm giving it two stars because the first couple chapters really did help me to get a vague understanding of how all this works, as well as some rudimentary Javascript. After that, it's too infuriating to bother with as a complete beginner, which is who the book is SUPPOSED to be for.

This might be a wonderful book but it's hard to tell through the proofreading errors. I'm only 27 pages into chapter 2 and I've already found 25 errors. The errors might be manageable to someone who already knows how to program in JavaScript. But for those new to the language the errors will drive you crazy. There's no excuse for this kind of sloppiness in publishing. Whoever proofread this book ought to be fired.

Just at the right level for an introductory book. It quickly goes through the basics and into more advanced topics. If you are looking to get your arms around this technology this is a great place to start.

Ajax is obviously one of the hot web technologies these days, and now we have the Dummies title that covers it... Ajax for Dummies by Steve Holzner. While it might be easy to write this off as "just another Dummies book", I don't know that I'd be so hasty...

Contents:
Part 1 - Getting Started: Ajax 101; It's All About JavaScript
Part 2 - Programming in Ajax: Getting to Know Ajax; Ajax in Depth
Part 3 - Ajax Frameworks: Introducing Ajax Frameworks; More Powerful Ajax Frameworks; Server-Side Ajax Frameworks
Part 4 - In-Depth Ajax Power: Handling XML in Ajax Applications; Working with Cascading Style Sheets in Ajax Applications; Working with Ajax and PHP
Part 5 - The Part of Tens: Ten Ajax Design Issues You Should Know About; Ten Super-Useful Ajax Resources
Index

As I said, I wouldn't write this off as just another Dummies title. For one, Steve Holzner has an excellent track record of writing tech books that have become the go-to references in the industry. As per usual, he also does a great job on this book, albeit in the "Dummies" style of presentation and writing. There is an abundance of code and screen shots that make it easy to follow along, and he presents just enough background on JavaScript and other Ajax components to bring you up-to-speed if those are not your strong areas. The only "nit" I have is that some of the code and screen shots in Chapter 2 don't quite mesh. The code statements for what should be on the screen don't quite match what actually printed out. It's as if the screen shot was made with a slightly reworded JavaScript routine. It still is essentially the same, but it threw me slightly as I was going through the material.

I felt the book really came to life in Part 3 with coverage of the different frameworks. I don't think any of the other books I've read on Ajax to date have had quite this much information on all the different frameworks you can implement to eliminate much of the "heavy lifting". Since Steve does a good job of presenting the pros and cons of each, you'll quickly determine if a framework is the way you want to go, and which options might be best for your particular project.

While not the most technical book on the subject, Ajax for Dummies does bring some angles to the table that aren't present (or as strong) in other books. It'd be a good introduction to the subject matter, or a nice second volume to gain a different perspective on the technology.

I did not see much about Java server side code for Ajax, but lots of PHP.
It mentions lots of different available Ajax frameworks. May help you to decide a framework to use.

This book is worth reading even if you have no interest in Ajax just to observe how a book of this nature should be written. Steve Holzner's communication and teaching skills are nothing less than awesome. If Ajax is of interest to you, this is the book to start no matter what level your interest or programming (or writing) proficiencies,- Holzer shows you the forest as well as the trees, - you'll get get your arms around Ajax, what it's all about, and where it can take you in an amazingly short time period and you'll be a dummy no more,- at least not where Ajax is concerned.
If Ajax is of no interest to you, it will be when you finish reading this informative masterwork.

Now more good news, after reading Holzner on Ajax, you'll be prepared for the very best book (technically) yet published on Ajax: David Crane's "Ajax in Action" - a Manning Publication. While Holzner takes you from ground level to 30 thousand feet with Ajax, "Ajax in Action", by David Crane, plummets you to explore many leagues beneath the surface, - after completion of these 2 books, you will join the ranks of the Ajax cognoscenti and dazzle your friends and foes alike with your newly acquired understanding of the foundation driving Web 2.0... Welcome to the future of the Internet!

Most web pages you see now have an active component, that is the web page consists of a base page with some data that comes out of a database. In most traditional web sites that are programmed with Cold Fusion, PHP, etc. each time you go to a new page the page, consisting of both static data and the data from the database are assembled by the server into an HTML page and sent to the browser.

If the data being updated is small, say current temperature, stock price, page count or something like that, the amount of transmitted data is very high when compared with the amount of data that is actually changing.

Ajax is a series of techniques that allow the client computer to keep the base page and only transmit the changing data. That is, the headline, most of the text, the pictures, everything that doesn't change is kept in place and only the temperature, price or page count is transmitted.

This book gives an excellent tutorial on how to use the various components such as JavaScript, XML, CSS and others to create what might be called an Ajax page. It also gives a wide series of URLs to go to for the most current information and demonstrations.