Head First Ajax 1 Edition  (English, Paperback, Rebecca M. Riordan)

Head First Ajax is a visually rich guide to understanding Ajax programming to build dynamic web pages.

Summary Of The Book

Ajax is an integrated technology that makes use of different tools and techniques. It is the abbreviation for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. It was designed to enable web developers to build web applications that would be as responsive and quick as desktop applications. This technology enables parts of the webpage to load independently of the whole. For instance, when only a certain section of the data displayed needs to be refreshed, the rest of the page is not disturbed at all. Only the relevant data gets refreshed.

Such a mechanism enables the building of fast and efficient applications. Also, this approach enriches user experience as the web page will not suddenly become unresponsive or blank as it waits for information from the backend server to refresh the whole page. Head First Ajax is a book that is designed to help readers understand Ajax and all the tools and components that make up this technology, in a very short time.

The book begins with an introduction to Ajax and designing Ajax applications. It shows how to handle events using Javascript and using multiple event handlers. It also explains what asynchronous programming is and why it offers many advantages. The text then describes the Document Object Model (DOM) and how to work with it, discusses frameworks and toolkits, and goes into XML Requests and Responses. It also focuses on the jSON data interchange format and how to use it with Ajax.

Other concepts like how to use forms to collect data from the user and how to validate form data before sending it back to the server are also presented. The various features of a Post request have been examined as well. Head First Ajax teaches Ajax to the readers in a way that will make them ready to begin writing Ajax applications as soon as they have finished working their way through this book systematically.

About Rebecca M. Riordan

Rebecca is an experienced developer of database solutions. Other books by Rebecca Riordan incude Fluent Entity Framework and Microsoft ADO.NET 2.0 Step By Step [With CDROM]. She writes textbooks on database and programming technologies. Riordan is a former Microsoft and Access MVP employee. She has years of experience designing database solutions for clients. At Microsoft Australia, Riordan was one of the senior technical support engineers for the company's database products.