Spent a lot of time discussing non-Ajax related information - Patterns, best practices, Javascript OO. All of this is valuable (especially the latter, which few actually use prior to Ajax). The Ajax examples that were included had a lot of plumbing required (and provided) which is nice for re-usability, but misses the mark if you want to grow your understanding by starting easy and progressing to more complex examples.

This book is a little outdated at this point, but provides clear and practical examples of using AJAX. It was very easy to understand, and most of the content still remains up to date.

Somehow I got hold of my first book on AJAX: Head Rush Ajax (Head First) and sure it gave me an intro to XMLHttpRequest - but that's all it did. I browsed through the informal/conversational writings of the book in one evening. And wondered, is there all to it? The current web-world is spinning around Web2.0 and AJAX technology - there must be more than that. Then I went back to the store and picked this book up - I am glad I did. It covers many more areas that an AJAX programmer must equip himself/herself, topics relating to MVC pattern, working with the server side programs and performance, security, as well as the basic topic: building standalone RIA using CSS, DOM and DHTML.

This one definitely shines over the rest on the topic, however, for a hands-on programmer (that's me), I would appreciate more code samples will help.

Finally, I am so happy to see what some other reviewers say. This book is not really that much about AJAX. I feel that I have wasted my AJAX budget. Sure, there is lots of valuable stuff here but the percentage of this book that is about AJAX proper.
I would say that 5 of the 13 chapters are about AJAX but that of course means that 8 are not at all about AJAX. At the same time, I got "Pragmatic AJAX" by the always funny Ben Galbraith. If you need to focus on AJAX--read Pragmatic AJAX.

It does more than introduce ajax to the reader. It also covers a little bit of programming methodology and some things to keep in mind when writing even a simple application. Overall it is a good book, but not if you are new to programming and especially if you are new to JavaScript.

I also will agree with the comment: "Principles of Web architecture and design... and a few words about Ajax". However, I find it to be an incredible book. It goes in depth about the Model View Controller, Design Patterns, and Refactoring. All terms that I did not know in depth. I actually skipped over a lot of the how-to AJAX stuff and read about the design theories. I can't wait to read it again.

The Appendix on how JavaScript works is worth the price of the book alone. NOW I understand how that crazy prototype works.

I agree with one of the reviewers (D. Klebanov) who suggested to re-name this book to "Principles of Web architecture and design... and a few words about Ajax"

I wanted a book that focuses strictly on Ajax functionality. This book is often vague and verbose and lacks unity.

It feels like the Authors took the Ajax concept and stretched it onto the set of many different topics. Some topics are pertinent to Ajax others are just subtly related.

I did find a lot of useful information in this book, but for the most part those things had nothing to do with Ajax. Just general strategies of web development. So I give it 2 stars because it is well written, although rather verbose. But really this is like ordering an apple and getting an orange and then trying to write a review on how oranges are also good.

If you want to go into AJAX I recommend this book.

To be able to learn something usable from this book you'll need some background in one of the technologies oriented to enterprise web development, If you lack this knowledge you won't enjoy this book, in fact I'm almost sure that you'll abandon it after not more than 80 pages.

I like very much it's technology agnosticism and it's clarity.

As an experienced developer already using ajax and looking for some best practices, I was dissapointed. Perhaps the topic is too broad for a single book to give a working developer the desired depth.


I'm hoping the next book on Prototype will be more of what I need.

This book does a good job of introducing AJAX. Unfortunately, AJAX has not gone mainstream at this point and is difficult to fit into an existing architecture that was not originally based on AJAX.

At 650 pages one would expect this book to be an AJAX Bible. Instead it meanders and wanders from topic to topic without getting into meaningful code examples or applications. The author could probably have written this book in under 300 pages and created a much better product.

On the other hand, the book isn't boring and, if you like rhetoric, find a comfortable chair and set in for a week of easy reading.

I'm a self-taught webmaster. The only languages I really "know" are html, css, php and mysql, and I'm not exactly a guru in the latter two. I do have a mere acquaintance with javascript, but I can't code it.

The reason for stating my background is that I found David Crane's (et al.) book "Ajax in Action" possibly the easiest-to-understand programming book I've ever read. He really has the talent of clear explanation, starting from the most basic knowledge. For instance (although it is not his best explanation) he takes the time to cover the basics of http headers for people who aren't familiar with the most fundamental knowledge of http, something you must know to use Ajax.

I have never before really understood the "DOM", or why it could possibly be important, at gut level. Crane accomplished this in a couple of pages. (As a happy side-effect, this explanation really clarifies the XML DOM and XSLT/XPath. In fact, Crane's explanations clear up all kind of confusion in a wide range of other areas.)

The first part of the book takes you through the most basic steps of Ajax. It clearly explains DHTML -- another subject I had considered utterly unimportant to my work -- and having done so, makes Ajax much easier to grasp. He makes the formerly mysterious "iframe" as easy as pie to grasp.

There is none of the constant heading off on tangents, repeated backtracking, or introducing of concepts that are explained later, which characterize most web-programming books. He states a principle, then states the code that derives from it. The method is so clear that even I, with only the most primitive grasp of javascript, am able to understand exactly what the javascript is doing is the examples.

He does spend a lot of time covering the advanced subject of good coding practice, but at least you can understand what he's saying, even if you work on comparatively small projects and thus the coding-practices advice is largely irrelevant to your work. At least these comments on "good code" will improve your work, although the benefit to the smaller website is marginal.

I highly recommend this book to a wide range of people: From anyone who wants to understand the basics of Ajax and has at least a passing acquaintance with javascript and at least one server-side scripting language, to the expert specialist looking to improve his Ajax coding for a major website.

(In fact, if you just want to understand the basis of DHTML, or various faces of XML, or don't know what an "iframe" really is, this book is worth the price just for that -- and you will have a good Ajax text when you decide to learn about it!)

The second part of the book is four complex "recipes" for specific Ajax applications. I have little use for these at the present. Again, however, I had no trouble understanding them, even though the first one uses VB Script -- and believe me, I neither have nor want a even a scrap of knowledge about VB Script. I feel confident that I could rewrite the code for this recipe, however, using PHP instead of VB Script; once again, this is due to the clarity of the presentation.

Making the change from traditional web programming to Ajax, requires a total mind-shift. Ajax in Action can help you do this with very few headaches.

I found that you do need quite a bit of previous knowledge of technologies like JavaScript, knowledge of OOP, CSS, XHTML standards and DOM programming. You need to know some server-side programming in a language such as Php.

The point is, the book is not exactly for beginners in the web-programming environment, but rather for programmers wanting to learn, understand and successfully implement the use of Ajax.

The chapters on Design Patterns were of much use to me too.

I highly recommend this book to any programmer wanting to master the concept of Ajax.

Ajax in Action is an excellent way to get into Ajax easily. It provides great examples that help you understand Ajax's mechanics.

The authors seems to know what they're talking about.
But they didn't, in my view, design and organize
a good book about the subject. How-to-do-it programming
books should start with Hello World examples and build upwards
from there (see Rasmus Lerdorf's recent usenet post about AJAX).
This book seems to wend its way aimlessly from subject to subject
without making any coherent connections.

This is a great book. The writing style is very friendly and encourages the reader to keep turning pages. It is well organized and addresses areas (such as perfomance and profile) that very few Javascript books delve into. Also of value are the discussion of various third party libraries and the very relevant and detailed example chapters (e.g. implementing a type-ahead text component). Server side code is include for several common server side technologies (Java, PHP and .Net). All in all, this is an excellent book for those wishing to come up to speed on Ajax quickly.

If you are an experienced programmer and already familiar with design patterns, refactoring, and application architecture, then you will probably find this book to be very frustrating.

The author seems to be on a crusade to rid the world of bad coding practices, and though I fully salute his efforts, I think this book is horribly mis-titled. A more appropriate title would have been "Principles of Web architecture and design... and a few words about Ajax".

All I wanted was to learn the mechanics of ajax, and after reading the first 100 pages and getting nothing (new) out of it, I felt like my time had been robbed.

Ajax in Action by Dave Crane is the best Ajax book on the market today. With over 600 pages of content, this incredibly well-written text explains why Ajax is so powerful and how this simple programming feature (it really isn't difficult to learn at all) has changed web development forever. No longer are users and developers limited to a page reload world, as the power of this technology now has the ability to make the web work like regular applications. It's a trend that has been desired for a loooong time and boy does it ever deliver!!!

Chapter Overview:

01. Ajax background
02. Learning to use Ajax
03. Order with Ajax
04. Pages as applications
05. Serve role
06. User experience
07. Security and Ajax
08. Ajax performance
09. Dynamic double combo example
10. Type ahead example
11. Enhanced Ajax web portal
12. Live search using XSLT
13. Stand-Alone apps with Ajax

If this is any indication of the kind of finished product that Manning Publications puts out, then this is another major player in the software development publishing field. This is an absolutely MUST BUY book for anyone that is a web developer or needs to learn how to use Ajax to bring their web application into the 21st century. For newbies, amateurs, and experienced developers, this guide will easy give you a return on your investment as you become the uber web developer that you always knew you could be!!

***** HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION

I have spent a lot of time thoroughly going through this excellent book - an almost complete reference on the subject. The only weakness in the book is the lack of discussion regarding the appropriate place to use it. Otherwise, this book covers all aspects of AJAX concerns: AJAX's weaknesses and strengths, refactoring code for maintainability, how it impacts user performance, security, graceful error recovery, and best of all, working example code - lots of it. The practical examples are significantly meatier than most books 'hello world' versions of technology normally presented.

A must read for anyone considering doing much more than just a couple of AJAX calls.

I bought this book after a long time I was looking for a good book on AJAX. I read the revies on Amazon - and decided to give it a try - it was worth every cent paid for the book.

The authors take real life examples, and show how to implement the solution using AJAX. They pay attention to possible pitfalls, and the code that displayed in the book, can be used as is !

It is defenetly one of the best book I read in few years.

If you are looking for some Ajax code to copy and paste into your webpages, this is not the book for you. But if you are creating Ajax web applications on a large or small scale and need to consider such aspects as design and refactoring, security, speed and system resources, then this book will help answer some of these questions. Although the authors, Dave Crane, Eric Pascarello and Darren James, discuss mostly the client-side of Ajax, their approach for this book is to re-teach web programmers away from the standard/classical webpage and introduce a new way for the server, browser and webpage to work together through Ajax.

The first part of the book concentrates on what Ajax is and how it differs from standard/classical web programming. The authors discuss the four core technologies of Ajax (JavaScript, CSS, DOM and XMLHttpRequest) concentrating on the different ways each is used and how they work together in an Ajax application. Ajax takes the concept of separation of tasks to an advanced level.

Once you are familiar with this new approach to these four preexisting technologies, you are ready to work on refining the coding process. Ajax uses a larger amount of JavaScript compared to classical webpages and the webpages are refreshed less often. The author's approach to managing a large Ajax code base is by design framework and refactoring which is a fancy way of saying they teach you to write small, reusable chunks of code where each chunk has a specific task. They take this code component framework further by using the Model-View-Controller architecture which separates an Ajax application into three parts. The Model is the part that performs the task and the View is the part that presents the results. The Controller is the liaison between the other two. By keeping these parts separate, your code is more reusable and more easily maintained. Changes to one part do not directly affect the other part.

With Ajax, the user does not have that familiar "click and wait" routine as the webpage refreshes to reflect changes. With Ajax, as the information is passed to the server and data is returned to the browser, there is no need to refresh the webpage. Therefore we need new ways to keep the user informed as to the process. A few of the new visual feedback components discussed here are the status bar, pop up dialog and inline highlighting. All of these happen asynchronously.

Many books do not address the topic of security. One thing I liked about this book was that the authors discuss potential security issues when using Ajax and several possible ways to close these security holes. Another area covered was performance issues such as speed and system resources. First you learn ways to monitor the performance of your Ajax application and then how to analyze and improve your code.

The book finishes with five sample projects which are built step-by-step. The first is an Ajax web form. In this project you learn how to use Ajax to link form input fields in such a way as to pre-populate the values (choices) in the form fields. The choice made by the user in one form field causes the values for the second field to be updated as necessary. This can be done without reloading the webpage because the two fields are linked and Ajax does the updating in the background. Next you learn how to create an Ajax type-ahead suggest feature (such as the Google Suggest) and ways to possibly improve on this using an object-oriented TextSuggest component. Moving from forms to more advanced user interface features, you will learn how to create an Ajax portal project such as A9.com, an Ajax based live search system and how Ajax can work with external RSS protocol instead of a server.

The authors first walk you through coding these projects and then show you how to refactor each into reusable components. When you have finished, you should have a code library that you can apply to any Ajax web application.

Dave Crane is a computer programmer and simulation modeller. Eric Pascarello is an ASP.NET developer and the author of JavaScript: Your Visual Blueprint for Building Dynamic Web Pages (2nd ed.). Darren James is the architect of the open source Rico project.

This book is my first AJAX book and frankly speaking this book did keep up its promises with a good introduction and smooth-sailing examples. I am not a Client-side scripting expert, but I found this book feeds a lot basics about Javascript and even CSS. These scripting langaugaes are important when you are working with Ajax.
The book has lots of examples that you'll find useful to fully understand what is going on. I found I could modify several of the examples and drop them into my own Ajax project. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to get introduced to Ajax programming and could also use a primer on Javascript and CSS.
I may probably buy another one other book on Ajax simply because it is still evolving and not standardized. Thus I feel sure there's more tricks to learn till AJAX hits all parts of the Internet. Worth reading + worth a buy and you will NOT be disappointed.

I have bought
Ajax Patterns and Best Practise (accademic),
Foundations of AJAX (accademic),
Professional AJAX (pragmatic)
and Ajax in Action (pragmatic)

Ajax Patterns is good at telling you the kind of patterns to use for different solutions, where as Ajax in Action is a little lighter here but after each chapter the is a Refactoring phase.
The "accademic" books are a too much up their own butts, like I am more OO than you. Like any new Fad, you will always have the scolars/purists padding out a point. The pragmatic books seem to be by real world developers, so you have less include files, better formed objects and useful samples. The WROX download samples are missing so you will have to contact the webmaster. All four books are good in their own way. Eg Patterns is good for designing data factories. None of then cover ASP3.0 some do Java, PHP or .NET for server side activies. on two books cover XML and only In Action covers SOAP and webservices. The others just use JSON which is not supported in ASP but well in php/ruby/js etc. "Ajax Patterns and Best Practise" is good if you are planning a large project and developing a in house tool kit. But "Professional AJAX" and "Ajax in Action" are ones I use all the time.

Are you a professional enterprise developer? If you are, you're in luck! Authors Dave Crane, Eric Pascarello and Darren James, have done an outstanding job of writing a book that explains how to distribute the application between the client and the server, while retaining the integrity of the system.

Crane, Pascarello and James, begin by discussing the fundamental differences between Ajax and the classic web application, how to think about usability, and other conceptual items. Then, they emphasize where the technology is used differently, or behaves differently, as a result of being part of Ajax. The authors continue by introducing the third main theme for this book, managing the Ajax codebase. Next, they look at ways of keeping your code clean on the client itself, applying the old web work-horse, Model-View-Controller, in a new way. Then, the authors look at different ways of communicating between the client and the server and how various types of frameworks can be adapted to work with Ajax. The authors continue by addressing the user experience, and take an in-depth look at ways of keeping the user informed while asynchronous tasks are executing. Next, they look at the issue of security in Ajax from a number of angles. Then, the authors discuss that other showstopper: performance. They also look at a simple way to give the user a richer experience by enhancing HTML forms with Ajax. The authors continue by showing you how to implement a type-head and fetching data from the server in response to user keystrokes. Next, they explore the wider possibilities of Ajax user interfaces. They also show you how to develop an Ajax-based search system and demonstrate the power of client-side XSLT as a way of turning raw XML data into formatted, styled content. Finally, they present an Ajax client without a back-end implementation.

You'll learn in this most excellent book, how to ensure your application is flexible and maintainable. So, if you are a web developer who has prior experience with web technologies, this book is for you!

(brief disclaimer: i am acquainted with one of the authors, and have corresponded with him for a number of years)

The authors of Ajax in Action state in their introduction that the book is not intended for beginning programmers, or for those without JavaScript experience. This is a warning worth heeding: members of either group will find themselves at a loss with this book.

However, that's because the book does what it says on the tin; it gets right to the core of Ajax, and very quickly. After a brief explanation of what Ajax is, and where it comes from, the authors move onto what you can (and cannot) do with Ajax, and from there on, it's all "how", with extremely practical examples.

And that's perhaps the greatest feature of this book: it's practical examples, includin word-completion and live searches. And the book's guiding philosophy, "getting it working first, then make it look pretty", is sure to be appreciated by those of you have suddenly found yourselves working on a web app with a deadline. To that end, there's also discussion of a few of the more popular Ajax frameworks and libraries, and how to get started with them.

The book also contains two helpful appendixes: one of useful tools for those working with JavaScript, and the other covering important aspects of JavaScript itself. Finally, the book has a reasonably complete list of available Ajax frameworks and their talking points.

Combine the above with the authors' clear language and understanding of the topic at hand, and Ajax in Action becomes an excellent book for those needing to get up and running quickly.

I have to say, I've been extremely impressed with all the Manning books I've read. These books remind me of O'reilly books back in the day. Ajax in Action is no exception, although it was not what I was expecting. To be honest, I didn't know what I was looking for in an Ajax book, but I looked through many of the latest crop of books and chose this one based on the reviews I've seen people give it and the strength of the imprint.

This book, and more books like it, are exactly the sort of books that are so hard to find for scripting languages, it isn't primarily a book about language or syntax, but a book about programming. They spend the first half of the book discussing techniques, referencing heavily Model-View-Controller and the Gang of Four's design patterns (which is also must read!). If they mentioned and showed their process of refactoring one more time in the book, I would have had to put it down to wipe away the tears of joy.

The second half of the book walks through several examples of application building. The examples are clear and useful. Their thought processes are well explained and even when you don't agree with the way they are doing something, it is really beneficial to learn why they do things the way they did. And their process of starting broadly and then refining and refactoring each example is extremely helpful to see how one can actually put into practice these techniques in javascript.

This book is for someone who already has a decent familiarity with javascript as well as with basic AJAX principles. They cover, broadly, http requests, working with the DOM and CSS, and the event model. But they cover it more as a refresher as well as with an eye towards the best ways to implement them in your programming. They also talk throughout the book and extensively in the very interesting appendices, different toolkits and development tools that one can use with javascript.

There were some downsides, to this book however. I think because of the way they were structuring the book they often introduce a code snippet with some complex logic and hand wave around the complexity until several pages afterwards when they get to the section where it becomes the topic of discussion. If one isn't immersed in javascript it can become a bit difficult to separate what should be obvious and what they will be talking about later.

They also spend a lot of time and space on the server side of things, giving examples in a several languages (although they give very short shrift to perl). I'm not sure that that is overly helpful, I think they should have assumed that you knew the server side language and simply referenced what the server side should be returning. The scope of the book simply didn't allow them to go into depth with these languages and if you can program the language already the examples were uneccessary and if you don't know the language it wasn't enough for you to usefully do anything with them.

But those two problems are far outweighed by all the other goodness they've packed into this book. I highly recommend this book to anyone doing any javascript development.

This book is detailed enough for explaining the revolutionary web technology in next generation, including not only introductory technical details and background reasons of ajax, but also couple of examples with patterns enhanced to let readers fully understand it's spirit. Beginner to intermediate level.

So far, this is the best coverage I've read on AJAX programming after buying two AJAX books. Although I am not a big fan of scripting and client-only rich applications I found this book does cover good basics which are critical to writing AJAXs. The code examples helps get going with learning/hacking AJAX concepts and some advanced Javascripting. I am still concerned about the industry acceptance of AJAX to use AJAX in my applications.

The book does explain the basics of Ajax, but there is so much verbal filler, I eventually was flipping pages looking for the substance. I wouldn't recommend this book.

This is the most systematic book on Ajax usage and patterns I've seen so far, giving you way more than just the technology overview and recipes. I also liked the very clean and thorough approach to JavaScript coding emphasized in an Appendix (which is, BTW, also one of the best JavaScript texts I've encountered).

Unfortunately, this book is also one of the wordiest I've read recently, occasionally giving you the feeling the authors just had to reach a certain page count, so they go into minor details and explain them in great length, while in other cases they just skip important topics they don't like (for example, using IFRAME POST instead of XmlHttpRequest).

First couple of chapters are ok.
Thereafter, the book has a nice discussion on oo patterns for javascript. Along the way, the book tries to give many ideas on how to design application framework. Yet I would expect to have learned all of this somewhere else! IMHO, a good book on AJAX would introduce the subject and show how AJAX changes the old ways of app design. Who needs the explanation of old concepts again.

I found this book annoying to read. It is not going straight to the point.

This is probably one of the best books I've read on computer technology. Pacing is excellent, examples cover enough for you to go read the rest in documentation, you're curious to see what happens next but always feel like you won't be disappointed, or left in the dark. The author knows what he is writing about and the questions you are used to asking when you've worked in programming for a few years, he answers.

If you are arriving at AJAX with a basic web development foundation, you will find "Ajax in Action" to be challenging to digest. From the introduction, the overall level of the book jumps right into code samples and skips most of the basics, making it an intermediate book at best.

I found the chapter on Ajax portal architecture using Java to be particularly useful, along with the Live Search chapter. But besides that, I didn't find as accessible as another book titled "Foundations of Ajax". I would recommend "Ajax in Action" only to developers who have at least a couple of years of web dev under their belt.

This is an excellent book for who wants to explore the ocean of AJAX. This book is well organized and covers lot of areas in AJAX. The best thing about this book is it's not particular about any framework or software it covers the basic principles of AJAX and also gives introduction to various AJAX toolkits available.

This book does talk about ajax, which is good. On the other hand, after 200 pages you still see the planet example, which is simple, not finished. If you don't need write code and you don't need to put ajax in a web site, this is a good book for you, which talked a lot concepts. If you want truely develop ajax on a cool site, you would be disappointed by samples in the book (too simple) and few explanations of codes that are relevant. For example, the book's context is somehow disconnected from the samples downloaded.

To find if this book is right for you, I strongly suggest that you read the book in a local bookstore before you buy it. Even download the source code from book web site and set up to run the examples, which is simple and may take a couple of hours to set up. Or you run those examples online on Internet sites such as www.usanalyst.com (for registered users only. It may take 20 seconds to join).

The first chapter or two were good. If you look for something that can jumpstart you in real projects, see the screenshot of the planet example and how this book spend half of pages to explain it. However, I do understant why the author spend much time on old patterns -- There are many guys out there who were not conviced about Ajax, the author want some buyins. But, Ajax is about making money and state of the art (because speed is the most important issue, not a bulgy design). If those guys don't want make money from ajax, that is their lose. They will miss the next revolution on internet.

John the Builder, www.usanalyst.com (Run Ajax book examples online at www.usanalyst.com. It may take 20 seconds to register).