KillerSites Blog

Book Review: AJAX Hacks

June 25, 2006

A collection of AJAX hacks (recipes) coupled with intelligent discussions. A good book to buy for anyone interested in AJAX and modern web application development.

The book begins with a great introduction to AJAX and then provides a useful grab-bag of commonly needed AJAX applications.

For example:

  • Processing Web forms.
  • Validations: credit card numbers, email addresses etc …

What are AJAX ‘hacks’?

AJAX ‘hacks’ are concise code samples that can be used as ‘components (if you will,) that you can plug into your own work.

Besides the usefulness of having a reusable collection like this, you can learn a lot from the ‘hacks’, since each one is coupled with a good discussion.

Some highlights:

  • Ruby on Rails and AJAX discussions
  • Examination of the open source AJAX libraries like Scriptaculous and Rico.
  • The concise and clear coverage of AJAX basics.

As with all O’reilly books, the writing is clear and concise and well presented.

Note: this is not a beginners tutorial … you will need to be able to work with and understand JavaScript.