JavaScript and Ajax for the Web: Visual QuickStart Guide (7th Edition) Review

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JavaScript and Ajax for the Web: Visual QuickStart Guide (7th Edition) ReviewThe audience for this book is beginning/novice web developers with a knowledge of HTML but not of JavaScript. The book begins with an introduction to basic JavaScript language features and then proceeds to work through a number of examples according to category (images, frames, browser windows, forms, regular expressions and strings, user events, and cookies). After, there are two chapters on AJAX fundamentals.
The book does not claim to be an in-depth resource. The general purpose of the QuickStart series of books is to provide an overview of the main concepts and practices in use by web developers today. It is meant to be a STARTING POINT to introduce novices to technologies, not as an in-depth reference. The authors of this and other QuickStart books point this out continually, yet still get bad reviews from people who have not taken the time to read about the purposes of various series from technical publishers. This is unfortunate for the public as well as unfair to the authors.
A previous reviewer mentioned what he took to be atrocious coverage of Ajax. The book contains two chapters exclusively covering Ajax. The first covers the fundamental techniques used to take advantage of this combination of technologies. The second chapter explores some of the popular Ajax toolkits currently available. This is consistent with the purpose of the book. Some readers may be interested in heading down the development path, yet others may be more interested in design and in using pre-existing tools. This book caters to both and has no intention of deceiving either reader.
The following quote is a good example of this. It is an excerpt from the title page of Chapter 16, which follows the introductory chapter (basic XMLHttpRequest usage, etc.) and precedes the Ajax toolkit chapter:
"[Writing] Ajax applications can be difficult. They often require a great deal of knowledge of working with the DOM, CSS, JavaScript, and server resources. Since this is a book for beginning scripters, we've shown you how to do some easy things with Ajax, so you can see that learning Ajax techniques is well within your reach. But many books have been written that are completely devoted to showing intermediate-to-advanced scripters how to create Ajax applications, and our Ajax chapters are no substitute for that kind of in-depth exploration."
As for the dual-column formatting that some reviewers disliked, it is consistent with the formatting of the entire QuickStart series, as well as the QuickPro series of the same publisher. The format is nice for tackling specific techniques in a concise amount of space. It is not as abstractly engaging as conventional technical books, but it is not meant to be. The format is excellent for explaining techniques (especial design techniques) as well as for conveying a sense of quick forward momentum.
I've only recently started reading books from Peachpit Press. I like these books because they get me up to speed quickly, and act as a comprehensive starting point, allowing me to understand "where I need to go from here."
This book is excellent as a broad introduction with lots of real-world examples. If you're a novice web developer with a decent grasp of HTML wishing for a comprehensive introduction to JavaScript and practical JavaScript techniques, this is the book for you.
However, if you're well-grounded and are looking for more in-depth coverage of JavaScript and Ajax techniques, "Professional JavaScript for Web Developers" (Nicholas Zakas / Wrox Press) and "Professional Ajax" (Zakas, et. al. / Wrox Press) are excellent in-depth resources geared toward real-world professional development, and both are among the best peer-reviewed titles in existence on these subjects.JavaScript and Ajax for the Web: Visual QuickStart Guide (7th Edition) OverviewThis task-based, visual reference guide has been fully revised. It uses step-by-step instructions and plenty of screenshots to give beginning and intermediate Web designers what they need to know to learn JavaScript. Readers can start from the beginning to get a tour of the programming language, or look up specific tasks to learn just what they need to know. In this updated seventh edition, readers will find new information on Ajax design and modern coding techniques.

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Styling Web Pages with CSS: Visual QuickProject Guide Review

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Styling Web Pages with CSS: Visual QuickProject Guide ReviewUPDATE: I originally gave this book 3 stars, but I am downgrading my review to a luke warm 3 stars. The reason is that in Chapter 8, there are several errors and omissions that basically doesn't let the user actually create the page that is shown. For instance, they leave out an integral selector "navbar ul" from the book. Without it, the page navbar looks like it is broken. Going to the source files (see below) showed me what I was missing, but for all the people that aren't aware that the source files exist, they might be lost. It appears that the book wasn't carefully proof read prior to publication. Actually it doesn't appear that the authors didn't have someone go thru the book as if they were learning CSS for the first time. If they did, this would have stood out as something that needed some fixing.
Another nit pick, in the same chapter, the reader is presented with the "old CSS" #navbar, but it actually should have been #sidebar.
>>>>>>>>>>>
I share many of the same thoughts as the other reviewers. I found it very frustrating that the source wasn't included as a download. If you go to the Peach Pit site, you can download the images, but not source files, wtf?
So I wound up googling Alpaca Repo and there is actually a site devoted to the fictional site in the book. Delving deeper, I see that the site is registered to none other than Dori Smith, the author.
For all who buy the book, you can visit the site at [...]. Replace DOT with an actual "."
UPDATE : Looks like Amazon stripped the URL from my review. If you have the book, go to page 15 and the URL is found in the screenshot of the web browser.
You would think the authors and or the publisher would read these comments and give an update.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Carlos F.
Holly Springs, NCStyling Web Pages with CSS: Visual QuickProject Guide OverviewSometimes it's hard to get started with a new technology. That's where this book excels. It's not going to show Web designers everything there is to know about CSS but rather will provide a solid introduction from which to build their CSS knowledge. The beginning of the book starts with the basics -- rules, selectors, classes, IDs, the cascade, internal and external style sheets, Divs, boxes, floats, padding, margins -- everything is covered. Next comes styling elements, working with images, menus and navigation, and moving styles from internal to external style sheets. Rounding out this project-based guide is working with browsers, both old and new, and debugging CSS. Succinct and to the point, it's the perfect book for designers without a lot of time who need to understand and start using CSS.

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