Print Book $44.99
Print Book £31.99
First Edition
June 2006
Pages: 655
Series: Theory In Practice
ISBN 10: 0-596-10180-5 |
ISBN 13: 9780596101800
(Average of 5 Customer Reviews)
This handy reference reveals how Ajax patterns can vastly improve your web development projects. It does so by investigating how others have successfully dealt with conflicting design principles, and then relaying that information directly to you. Includes sections on foundational technology patterns, programming patterns, functionality and usability patterns, and diagnosis/testing of Ajax applications.
Full Description
Ajax, or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, exploded onto the scene in the spring of 2005 and remains the hottest story among web developers. With its rich combination of technologies, Ajax provides a strong foundation for creating interactive web applications with XML or JSON-based web services by using JavaScript in the browser to process the web server response.
Ajax Design Patterns shows you best practices that can dramatically improve your web development projects. It investigates how others have successfully dealt with conflicting design principles in the past and then relays that information directly to you.
The patterns outlined in the book fall into four categories:
- Foundational technology: Examines the raw technologies required for Ajax development
- Programming: Exposes techniques that developers have discovered to ensure their Ajax applications are maintainable
- Functionality and usability: Describes the types of user interfaces you'll come across in Ajax applications, as well as the new types of functionality that Ajax makes possible
- Development: Explains the process being used to monitor, debug, and test Ajax applications
Ajax Design Patterns will also get you up to speed with core Ajax technologies, such as XMLHttpRequest, the DOM, and JSON. Technical discussions are followed by code examples so you can see for yourself just what is-and isn't-possible with Ajax. This handy reference will help you to produce high-quality Ajax architectures, streamline web application performance, and improve the user experience.
Michael Mahemoff holds a PhD in Computer Science and Software Engineering from the University of Melbourne, where his thesis was "Design Reuse in Software Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction." He lives in London and consults on software development issues in banking, health care, and logistics.
"Michael Mahemoff's Ajax Design Patterns
is a truly comprehensive compendium of web
application design expertise, centred around but not limited to Ajax
techniques. Polished nuggets of design wisdom are supported
by tutorials and real-world code examples resulting in a book that
serves not only as an intermediate to expert handbook but also as an
extensive reference for building rich interactive web applications."
--Brent Ashley, remote scripting pioneer
Cover | Table of Contents | Colophon
Featured customer reviews
A "must have" Ajax Resource for every Web 2.0 developer, February 26 2008
Let me get something straight here: Michael Mahemoff really knows how to teach, this book is one of the most appropriated books for those who want to learn about AJAX and in this review I'll tell you why I think so.
First of all, the book starts explaining all the basics of AJAX with its definitons, how it works, related technologies and more. But the best point is: the author always explains using real-life examples, which makes everything easier to understand. The following chapters cover the AJAX Design Patterns properly. You can think about these design patterns as specific solutions, for example "how to made an auto-complete box with ajax", which will give you a great variety of "what can I do with ajax" things. The book also covers some architectural patterns too.
I think the main goal of this book is not only the great diversity of solutions that you can apply in your projects, but how the author explains them. He always starts the explanation of a design pattern with a brief history of how this pattern can help you giving real examples on where these patterns have being applied. Don't forget that one of the main goals of Design Patterns is to create a "vocabulary" to make an easier reference about a specific subject, and this book completely achieves this goal by giving names for each one of those solutions represented as a Design Pattern.
That's why I believe this book is a "must have" for any AJAX professional or student.
practical reference book, August 27 2007
Ajax Design Patterns is good both as a reference book and for learning new techniques of AJAX development. This book explores many cutting-edge and practical techniques used in developing dynamic web applications. It is easy and enjoyable to read, presenting the material in a clear and concise structure. Its only weakness is its lack of concrete code examples for some patterns. For example, the “Page Rearrangement” pattern briefly discusses how to use CSS and set the coordinates of elements but does not discuss the issue in depth (e.g. potential problems with determining the window size for positioning elements, etc). One of the best parts of the book is the real world examples given for each pattern. Also, the tools for AJAX development discussed are very useful.
Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone in web design/development, especially those working on dynamic websites.
Very nice reference, January 30 2007
This book does a nice job of combining practical examples of AJAX and the therory behind the "best practices" of AJAX. The idea behind the book is to present a framework for the use of AJAX regardless of the language used to implement that framework. This is ideal for those who use multiple languages or use languages other than the most common. The book is an easy read for those already familiar with making 3-tier apps. The text is well written and well edited.
Excellent Ajax book - and excellent Web/UI Design Patterns book, November 03 2006
With the sudden popularity of Ajax, books about it started to appear like mushrooms after rain.
I found Ajax to be an exciting technology, but I also found that explaining it requires no more than a handful of pages - not enough for writing a whole book.
That's why, it seems, every book related to Ajax is actually about Ajax and something else: some are about JavaScript, some are about patterns, some mention hacks etc.
The first thing I enjoyed when browsing 'Ajax Design Patterns' at a local bookstore was the respect the author showed towards the reader - clearly the reader was assumed to have solid Software Engineering background (not necessary heavy on HTML, XML or JavaScript). I found a couple of other Ajax books I browsed at the store quite irrelevant to a professional software engineer (the one example that comes to mind: explaining the meaning of the assignment (=) operator, and how that is different from the compare (==) operator, well, you get the point).
In any way this book is a lot about Ajax, which I appreciate, as it was the reason I needed it for, but also a lot about web design patterns, which are not strictly related to Ajax (some of those patterns can use JavaScript with minimal or no communications to the server, for example).
In summary, this book is excellent reading on Ajax and on Web/UI design; in particular, next to every design pattern, there are innumerable references to actual web sites using that pattern.
Several tools and examples are available for download from this site, which should be a boost to create my first few Ajax applications.
Finally, a large number of tools available to Ajax developers are listed as added bonus.
One area which I would like to see a bit more developed is the server side - true, there are lots of published works on SOAP, AXIS etc, but it would be nice to have a bit more about Ajax-related server side technologies in a client Ajax-related book (this book does offer server-side tips and examples but on a minimal scale, using simple PHP examples).
Question that what the meaing of "Forces"?, September 06 2006
I don't exactly understand the meaning of "Forces". Each Ajax patterns have "Goal Story", "Problem", "Solution", and so on. But I don't understand the "Forces". Can you explain it for detail?
Media reviews
"...an invaluable resource as your online development begins to get more complex in a demanding world expecting web apps with rich UIs and multifaceted formats (e.g., JSON, SOAP, XML, et al.). I find it to serve equally well as programmer's reference and architecture guide. I rarely rate any books a perfect score, but this certainly is deserving of such a nod. This is truly a masterpiece, and one that no developer doing Web 2.0 work should be without."
-- Jason Salas, The Jason Salas Experience
"I would recommend the Ajax Design Patterns to all those who work or aspire to work on web development projects as an excellent reading and reference resource. "
-- Pankaj Kumar, Slashdot.org
"Best Development Book - 2006 Editors Choice Award"
-- Linux Journal
Read all reviews
"If you want to get up-to-speed with core Ajax technologies this is the text to have. Anyone with a professional-level interest in web technologies should read Ajax Design Patterns."
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