23rd march 2006

don't judge a book by a oneplayer review

ajaxian has put something up about wrox's new ajax book, "professional ajax" (isbn: 0471777781). although i haven't read any of the reviews it mentions, it claims that they are generally positive.

i've had the book for almost a fortnight now, and have gone through most of it, and i'm not that impressed to be honest. perhaps it's simply that it's the first ajax book that i've read - there aren't many around at the moment, although there are several planned over the next few weeks - but, in my opinion, there was very little new information here. once the book covers creating an xmlhttp object (which it then uses the author's zxml library - incidentally available to download at www.nczonline.net/downloads/ - to do for the rest of the book), it's essentially a javascript book. but maybe that's the issue. i mean, what exactly does the term 'ajax' cover, if it isn't simply using javascript to do things that we didn't (sorry, should that be "i didn't"?) do 12 months ago? i don't know.

anyways, i maybe digging myself into a hole here, but the point is, i'm not particularly impressed with the book, but i may have been expecting something different. it's just my opinion. perhaps it'll change as i get deeper and deeper into the book. or when everyone comes out and says "it's brilliant!" and i inevitably jump on the bandwagon.

related:

ajax,

web dev