Ajax Design Patterns: Creating Web 2.0 Sites with Programming and Usability Patterns

by Michael Mahemoff

Ajax, or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, exploded onto the scene in the spring of 2005 and remains the hottest story among web developers. With its rich combination of technologies, Ajax provides a strong foundation for creating interactive web applications with XML or JSON-based web services by using JavaScript in the browser to process the web server response.

Ajax Design Patterns shows you best practices that can dramatically improve...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0596101805
• ISBN13: 9780596101800
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 656 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 7.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A "must have" Ajax Resource for every Web 2.0 developer.

Let me get something straight here: Michael Mahemoff really knows how to teach, this book is one of the most appropriated books for those who want to learn about AJAX and in this review I'll tell you why I think so. First of all, the book starts explaining all the basics of AJAX with its definitons, how it works, related technologies and more. But the best point is: the author always explains using real-life examples, which makes everything easier to understand. The following chapters cover the AJAX Design Patterns properly. You can think about these design patterns as specific solutions, for example "how to made an auto-complete box with ajax", which will give you a great variety of "what can I do with ajax" things. The book also covers some architectural patterns too. I think the main goal of this book is not only the great diversity of solutions that you can apply in your projects, but how the author explains them. He always starts the explanation of a design pattern with a brief history of how this pattern can help you giving real examples on where these patterns have being applied. Don't forget that one of the main goals of Design Patterns is to create a "vocabulary" to make an easier reference about a specific subject, and this book completely achieves this goal by giving names for each one of those solutions represented as a Design Pattern. That's why I believe this book is a "must have" for any AJAX professional or student.

Packed with excellent information

This book is not perfect. There are a handful of editing mistakes and the author seems to go out of his way to ignore anything that Microsoft might have created (except ajax of course - wink). On the positive side, this book is extremely well written. The author has a natural writing style that is conversational but still structured enough to fully cover material. The layout and organization of the book adds to the readability.

Don't go without this book if you're doing Web 2.0 work

Michael has quickly staked his claim as a major driving force in the world of software design, most notably in the vein of AJAX development, and his outstanding work on "AJAX Design Patterns" is certainly testament to that. Despite the book's title implying a heavy lean towards application development via asynchronous remote scripting, it's actually is more accurate in its subtitle, being applicable towards the trendier Web 2.0 movement (but given the mixed reactions to Web 2.0, I can see how such might want to be played down.) The book's organization is logically laid out, providing a historical and academic profile of the technological foundations that gave rise to modern-day asynchronous programming. Michael then leads into the actual patterns, being grouped by function. Probably the most relevant to web developers are those related to into the various forms of web remoting, DOM manipulation, and next-gen visualization (i.e., drag-and-drop effects); while programming patterns geared for performance enhancement and code generation will whet the appetites of even the most advanced coders. (Among my favorite patterns are those dealing with HTTP streaming (a field of which Michael's a pioneer), on-demand JavaScript, and content refreshing.) If, for no other reason, you buy this book it should be for any developer considering themselves to be cutting-edge should buy this book for the section on Chapter 9 on REST applications development. This in my opinion is the most well-rounded discussion of what RESTful production is(n't), and how to incorporate such architecture into your own web projects. Being a .NET developer, that platform's framework serves to both abstract my kind away from having to directly deal with such concepts, or Microsoft blatantly neglects to mention it at all. After scouring the Web for months looking for good content on REST, Michael lays it all out in easy to understand lingo and examples. I'm having the REST chapter photocopied and bronzed for my desk. It's that good. The one thing I didn't dig too much about the book is its exclusive lean towards PHP for examples where server-side logic was needed. While other platforms like J2EE, .NET, Ruby on Rails and Cold Fusion are keenly cited for their contributions and capabilities, the vast majority of the code is in PHP. But this is just a personal quirk...I'm obviously not big on PHP. But that minor preference aside, I've followed this book's development since its days as a wiki. It's an invaluable resource as your online development begins to get more complex in a demanding world expecting web apps with rich UIs and multifaceted formats (e.g., JSON, SOAP, XML, et al.). I find it to serve equally well as programmer's reference and architecture guide. I rarely rate any books a perfect score, but this certainly is deserving of such a nod. This is truly a masterpiece, and one that no developer doing Web 2.0 work should be without.

An Excellent Ajax Patterns Book

Ajax Design Patterns is the third book I have read dealing with AJAX (after Head Rush Ajax and Pragmatic Ajax, both good books) and it is by far the most comprehensive dealing with this topic. Michael Mahemoff writes, in apparently his first book, an excellent introduction to the topic in the first three chapters and is worth reading even if you are familiar with Ajax. Though I would recommend reading either of the two books mentioned earlier first if you have little knowledge of Ajax, DHTML and JavaScript. The majority of the book is the patterns grouped by foundational technology, programming patterns, functionality and usability patterns, and development patterns. The immense amount of patterns mentioned is a bit overwhelming to read from cover-to-cover (though I did this otherwise I would not have reviewed this book) though the benefit is to acquaint yourself with a plethora of interesting ideas (and several not-so-plausible) that could be beneficial to your Web 2.0 (this misnomer is more of a marketing term) development. The chapter of Development Patterns is a must read for developers discussing diagnosis and testing patterns. I like the layout of each pattern with a Name, Goal Story, Problem Forces, Solution, Decisions, Real-World Examples, Alternatives and more. However, they really should have printed each pattern on the top of a new page instead of having it start at various places within the pages; this looks a bit tacky. Be warned that the server-side code examples are in PHP (though almost all Ajax books tend to reference that so I do not mind). Other than that and certain layout issues I do not have many problems with this book (here is another book that could have benefited from a hardback edition). Though, I do think the Evidence (done by using three buttons to establish real-world evidence) was a bit arbitrary and sometimes silly (but I'll let you be the judge of that) and the book could have referenced more than six other books. There are so many examples and references that all of these sites are a boon to building your software acumen (of course the rub is that relying on links in your book means that many of these will eventually be outdated). In fact the Appendix is the best resource I've seen (in print) for Ajax Frameworks and Libraries. I recommend this book to web developers who are serious about Ajax and learning existing and newer uses of this software paradigm.

The Best Ajax Book!

If you think you know anything about Ajax, you're wrong. After you read this book you'll realize how little you knew. Michael Mahemoff has a PhD in Computer Science, but it might as well be on Ajax since I've never read a book with so much useful information about it. There are about 8 or 9 Ajax books on the market right now and none of them come close to giving the useful information this one does and that is only after reading the first 150 pages. This book really is the complete tutorial and reference to learning and using Ajax properly. The first 2 chapters go over the basic components of Ajax and some basic code examples different techniques Ajax is used to enhance functionality and usability: live search, progress indicators and the one-second spot highlight. The end of chapter 2 is a kind of teaser of what is to come in explaining some of the patterns that will be discussed with website examples to illustrate how they are done: data grids, suggestion, popup, virtual workspace, browser-side cache, fat client, drag-and-drop, image slideshow, web services, etc. Chapter 3 focuses on the basics of an ideal Ajax application and some the design principles that programmers should follow such as following web standards, accessibility, bandwidth issues, latency, and graceful degradation, among others. He sets you in the right direction in thinking how you should code your application with all these ideas in mind since proper patterns will give you smoother working applications with fewer problems when it is released into production. It is a very interesting chapter that does not go into much code but is more of a background on the issues that need to be thought about before developing your architecture. Some of these things you may have already read about in various blogs but is put together wonderfully in this early chapter. Many of the chapters to follow go through various solutions and Michael goes through various techniques ion how to solve it giving the advantages and negatives starting in chapter 4. The first solution is an Ajax App that helps user enter data quickly with instant validation, integrated searches, and dynamic form field updates. Then he asks questions in order to create this application by first giving a background on how standard web apps (flash, java, desktop, etc) have done this in the past and how Ajax can do this now. This is done throughout the book in covering different patterns with code illustrations, code snippets and web site examples. This is not a book that you can quickly breeze through mid you. It will take some time for you to read and understand everything the author is trying to get across, but you will have a greater understanding of how to use Ajax effectively and you probably will go back to this book time and time again after you finally finish it. I've never encountered a book quite so informative, but I'm so glad I did especially on such a topic such as Ajax that will be around for many years to co