Product Description

Building Responsive Web Applications with AJAX and PHP is the most practical and efficient resource a reader can get to enter the exciting world of AJAX. This book will teach you how to create faster, lighter, better web applications by using the AJAX ingredients technologies to their full potential. Assuming a basic knowledge of PHP, XML, JavaScript and MySQL, this book will help you understand how the heart of AJAX beats and how the constituent technologies work together. After teaching the foundations, the book will walk you through eight real-world case studies covering tasks you’ll be likely to need for your own applications: - AJAX enabled form-validation page - Online chat room - Customized type-ahead text entry solution, that helps users find the help page for the PHP functions - A simple cards game that supports multiple simultaneous sessions - Whiteboard where online users can draw online - Database-enabled, editable and customizable data grid - RSS aggregator application - Use the script.aculo.us JavaScript toolkit to build a drag&drop enabled sortable list The appendixes guide you through installing your working environment, using powerful tools that enable debugging, improving, and profiling your code, working with XSLT and XPath, and working with existing AJAX frameworks.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53468 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 284 pages

Customer Reviews

not worth the price
This book does offer good insights into php and ajax. It however tends to not teach as much as redirect. It points to a lot of free resources on the web to explain things it should have had as it's own chapter.

I also spends way to many pages showing duplicate code. For example in the 2nd chapter it spends significant time creating a function called createXmlHttpRequestObject. This function is about 1/2 a printed page. then in every later chapter this same function is printed at least twice per chapter. This isn't the only example and in ends up that you have 10-15 pages of code for each section most of which is duplicate from previous sections. You could easily cut 50-100 pages from the book by removing the duplication.

The book also doesn't spend any time on security. Specifically it doesn't show how to create a secure login or to validate that the javascript on the client is authorized to get the data that it is requesting. Everything is free and open with only basic validation that data is in the correct form.

That being said it does provide a broad range of ways to use ajax. I would happily spend $10 on it again. Unfortunately i spent over double that :(

Ideal book for those who currently have some PHP, XML, JavaScript and MySQL already under their belt.
AJAX and PHP: Building Responsive Web Applications is the ideal book for those who currently have some PHP, XML, JavaScript and MySQL already under their belt. Little time is spent on the basics of these technologies other than a brief history of the Web and predictions for future Web applications making this book a great segue for those looking to take their basic skills to the next level. The code is well documented and commented so if you are the type of person who prefers to jump right in and work with code, then this book is for you.

The biggest strength of this book is that is provides practical code examples that teaches the reader how to combine and use these technologies together. Some of the most handy examples are server-enabled form validation, an online chat tool and an RSS feed reader. Even if you only need to know one of these items, though there are plenty more, it's well worth it to pick up this book. No only will you be able to create these applications yourself, but you'll learn best practices and understand the why and how of each program as well. Additionally, the book's companion website is quite good and allows you to download all of the code. This can be especially helpful if you find yourself getting stuck somewhere and want to do a side-by-side comparison of the your code and the book code. There are even five free additional PDF chapters for download including an updated version of Chapter 5 - AJAX Chat - which uses JSON instead of XML.

However, if you're the type of person that is looking for a very concise, step-by-step book, you may find yourself frustrated. Just as its strengths are in letting you jump right into the code, if you're not at the stage where you're comfortable with any of the included technologies, you'll quickly find yourself overwhelmed with a lack of direction and an abundance of code. Additionally, while the use of bold type clearly indicates emphasis on specific code lines, if anything could improve this book, just for readability's sake, it would color-indicated code.

In conclusion, if you've already gotten your feet wet with PHP, XML, JavaScript and MySQL then AJAX and PHP: Building Responsive Web Applications will help you get to the next level with real-world code examples and projects. You'll not just "copy code" but gain an understanding as to the "why and how" of creating AJAX Web applications.

Packt Publishing Nails Another One!
The good folks at Packt Publishing have really nailed it with this title. This is one of the best books I have read on the topic of PHP and AJAX. They really broke down what the point and objectives of using AJAX with PHP are and then explained how to do things in a way that makes plenty of sense.

This book has no lack of code to copy, luckily most of the code can be found on the companion site hosted by Packt Publishing. I must say that as of my experience all the code was in working order, which was a pleasant change from some other coding books I have read recently.

The XMLHttpRequest code in AJAX and PHP is quite impressive including try/catch formula for catching exceptions and failures in the code and handling them properly, again a very welcome change to some of the coding books or recent. I was particularly impressed with the structure of the code regarding the handling of responses as well as all the explanations of the code used in each example, never did the authors leave you wondering what any piece of code did, or why it do so.

The book is a short 260 pages, and just full of useful information. A great follow up to this book would be anything DHTML as that is where most of the AJAX examples want to seem to lead a reader. Having a knowledge of DHTML is not important however a firm understanding of PHP and JavaScript would really benefit a reader choosing AJAX and PHP.