Facebook® Application Development For Dummies®

Foolish Assumptions

Of course, I'm assuming that this book is just for developers and marketers. This book could work well for anyone really. The book is for all those people who want to know a little more than they should about Facebook. It's for those who want to be able to cause a little trouble with what they know. It's for those who like to just get things done and not worry about seeing whether others can get it done for them. I've argued back and forth with my editor on the possibility of just calling this book Hacking Facebook For Dummies. The truth is, this book is all about hacking Facebook.

If you visit Facebook, the company, you'll see little stamped “HACK” artwork on the walls all throughout the company. “Hacking” permeates the culture of Facebook, from its developers to its marketers to the executives. Mark Zuckerberg himself, at least I hear, tells his employees to go out and break things. They have regular “hackathons,” where employees spend all night getting cool things done and building cool products. To be a hacker just means that you want to get things done and that you'll use all the tools in your arsenal to make that happen. I assume that you're one of these people, and I'd like to extend that hack culture to everyone in my audience.

In many cases, I do assume that you at least have a little HTML, and in some cases, JavaScript knowledge to understand what I'm talking about. If you don't, I suggest that you spend some time trying to at least understand what ...