Amid the flurry of rushed-to-print Ajax books released this past spring was O'Reilly's Ajax Hacks. While some of the initial clutch of Ajax books have been disappointing, Ajax Hacks competently accomplishes its mission, which is to show you how to implement Ajax in useful ways. Aside from a few minor annoyances, I found this book very helpful.

Writing analysis

The actual writing in Ajax Hacks certainly won't win any awards. At times I found it difficult to read because of a mismanagement of words. Fortunately, the author doesn't have to say much -- the code speaks for itself.

The book's screen shots are descriptive, but Apple-centric. I doubt the majority of Web developers are on Macintosh computers, and people like me tend to think of every Apple product placement as a secret advertisement for a kind of computer that we already know we don't want to buy or use. Basically, I don't want to see what OS you are using when the book is supposed to be focused on Web coding, and doubly so when the window decorations are as distracting as they are in OS X. Anyway, the screen shots are pretty evenly split between Firefox and Safari, which I found strange considering the special attention Internet Explorer needs in implementing Ajax, and the gigantic difference in global browser usage between IE (between 80 and 90 percent) and Safari (between 1 and 3 percent). Again, this is the machination of an Apple-centric author.

Speaking of browsers, the book covers Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and for some reason Netscape, with little mention of Mozilla and no mention of GNU/Linux browsers like Konqueror or Epiphany (though they use the same rendering engines as Safari and Mozilla, respectively).

Putting the book to the test

Ajax Hacks is able to zero in on actually using Ajax on Web sites in realistic ways, and that's why I like it. Whatever you want to do with your Web site to make it more dynamic, this book has a tip that can be directly used, or easily modified for use ("Hacking the hack," as the author calls it). All of the code samples in the book can be used in production Web sites without royalty or restriction, so you can more or less copy and paste the code as it appears in the book.

Ajax Hacks is split into topical chapters: Ajax basics, Web forms, validation, power hacks for Web developers, direct Web remoting (DWR) for Java jocks, hack Ajax with the Prototype and Rico libraries, work with Ajax and Ruby on Rails, savor the script.aculo.us JavaScript library, and options and efficiencies. Each chapter contains roughly ten hacks on each subject, along with an appropriate explanation and some advice on implementation.

In terms of content, the only thing really missing from Ajax Hacks is security. There's only a passing mention of the fact that you need an SSL connection for a credit card validation form, and the example shows a standard, unencrypted form. I'm of the opinion that you shouldn't even think of writing a credit card validation page without SSL.

Conclusions

If you're trying to make your site more responsive and dynamic with Ajax and you're already familiar with JavaScript, XML, and the document object model (DOM), Ajax Hacks will be a tremendous benefit to you. It can also be of use to you if you're a competent Web developer who wants to figure out if Ajax will benefit your sites. However, if you don't have any JavaScript experience and don't know much about HTML, XML, or object-oriented programming, you'll probably want to stay away from Ajax Hacks. This is definitely not a beginner's text, or an "introduction to Ajax" or anything like that. It's strictly for helping you put Ajax into production use. Not only does it do that well, but it also does it in the shortest amount of time imaginable.

Considering what you can do with this book, it's a steal at $20.

Discuss this article or get technical support on our forum.

Copyright 2006 Jem Matzan.