Step-by-step guide reveals best practices for enhancing Web sites with Ajax

• A step-by-step guide to enhancing Web sites with Ajax.

• Uses progressive enhancement techniques to ensure graceful degradation (which makes sites usable in all browsers).

• Shows readers how to write their own Ajax scripts instead of relying on third-party libraries.

Web site designers love the idea of Ajax--of creating Web pages in which information can be updated without refreshing the entire page. But for those who aren't hard-core programmers, enhancing pages using Ajax can be a challenge. Even more of a challenge is making sure those pages work for all users. In Bulletproof Ajax, author Jeremy Keith demonstrates how developers comfortable with CSS and (X)HTML can build Ajax functionality without frameworks, using the ideas of graceful degradation and progressive enhancement to ensure that the pages work for all users. Throughout this step-by-step guide, his emphasis is on best practices with an approach to building Ajax pages called Hijax, which improves flexibility and avoids worst-case scenarios.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 29 Ratings

NOT Bulletproof! - 2009-11-18
Reviewer Rating:
This is a good book to start learning AJAX from. It covers the main principles and goes through beginner to semi-intermediate levels. It contains good enough information to grasp what AJAX really is, but falls short on anything more than basic. It won't get you writing AJAX code for the mere fact that this book is quite preliminary in standards. So to make a true benefit from this one, try to incorporate it with another, beginner to intermediate level (as this is super-beginner).

The good thing about it is that the author doesn't assume any prior AJAX knowledge about you, but it DOES require you to be familiar with the DOM (and consequently basic JS), otherwise you're wasting you time.

Good but brief; would have gave 4 stars if more in depth. - 2009-07-25
Reviewer Rating:
I noticed this book because of the way it read and the style of it. I liked the introduction as well as the crash course in Javascript; it was very clear and concise particularly for a person with no Javascript experience except for W3schools.org examples. However, the author ramps up quite quickly after that chapter in terms of coding. He tries to explain but assumes you are able to figure out what the javascript code is doing after the crash course chapter. He give a thorough breakdown but does not cover enough. He does a decent job of explaining the concepts and how to use the code. The accompanying website has all the source codes for you to use with the tutorials, which is helpful, but this book is not for a novice at programming.

You definitely need programming background in Javascript and PHP.

I am a novice at programming but I do understand HTML and CSS. I wanted to add more skills and was particularly interested in Javascript and how AJAX worked out. This book is more conceptual rather than setting you up with fundamentals; but then, AJAX is a concept. In order to fully understand AJAX, you need to be familiar with Javascript, XML, HTML, CSS, etc as each component creates AJAX.

I would have given a higher rating if the book was longer and more detailed. But this is a good book as an introduction to the concepts as an easy read if you are already have experience and familiarity with Javascript, XML, PHP and MySQL.

Excellent book! - 2009-05-19
Reviewer Rating:
This is clear, concise, and what I would describe as a "page turner" -- you just have to keep reading once you start reading it. It is a basic intro to AJAX, but very solid and detailed. Highest recommendation.

Puzzled at the target audience for this book - 2008-12-14
Reviewer Rating:
I can't figure out what audience the author intended to write for. There's a chapter that is ostensibly an overview of Javascript, but there is far too little detail for the beginning user. If the target audience was for a non-JS programmer, there's no way they could grab enough of the information presented in the sparse overview and get up and running with any confidence. Conversely, if the user is an intermediate or pro, the JS chapter is superfluous. And that's a huge waste of space in a book that's barely 200 pages including the index.

The author, however, IS very knowledgable and there are some good examples of how to implement Ajax. Just not enough meat on the bones. For a beginning user, there is only enough to get a general sense of what's going on, but not enough to start programming on one's own.

Also, there isn't very much information on "bulletproofing" Ajax as the title indicates. "Bulletproof Web Design" goes to great lengths to show how to bulletproof, but here it's almost an afterthought. Very little info in that regard.

As mentioned, the book is short, and could have used at least another 50 pages to fill in gaps where there is clearly more explanation needed. I've since read "Head First Ajax" which does a better job of getting you up and running.

worst book ever. no kidding - 2008-10-06
Reviewer Rating:
Normally i don't return books because it's too much trouble for $20 or so. I had to return this one because i could picture the people behind it laughing at me for buying it.

The publisher of this book needs to recall it and take it off the shelf if they want to retain a slim hope of credibility.

The book is devoid of anything useful that you can't find on the wikipedia page on Ajax. When it finally strays from the extremely basic stuff, it fall on its buttocks with all sorts of mistakes.
There are even mistakes that contradict the other mistakes!

Stay far away from this book. it's called "bulletproof" because it's a blackhole of nothingness.

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