Comments about oreilly Ajax on Java:

This book is incredibly flawed. The author explains different code than what is shown to the reader. Seriously, the example code and the explained code are different. I have found several JavaScript functions that are being called but are not defined anywhere! I am very unhappy with this book and would not recommend it to anyone. The reviewers who gave this book 5 stars must work for Oreilly or didn't actually attempt to do the examples. Why, when I am being taught AJAX, do I want to sit and debug the authors code?

Comments about oreilly Ajax on Java:

This is not a thick book. I finished it in 3 hours though I skimmed through some of the topics. I learned a lot of useful information on how to implement AJAX using Java technology. If you have a good understanding of Java servlet, XML, CSS and Javascript, you will have no problem understanding the concepts and examples presented in this book.

The book does have some errors but if you have already have a solid foundation of the underlying building blocks of an AJAX solution, those errors will be quite obvious to you. Treat the errors as exercises that test your understanding of the concepts.

Comments about oreilly Ajax on Java:

This has to be one of the worse books on this topic, I cannot believe that any fair editorial process at O'Reilly would allow this book to be published. The less than stellar one paragraph about the author Steven Douglas Olsen should have been a clue. Apart from a simple javascript example in Chapter 2, none of the code presented as examples work, or even come close to working. As of this writing, I see no corrections for code, or even where to download the code used by the author in this book. This book is a complete waste of your money, time and efforts. The 5 stars given by the first 2 reviews I saw on this site, in which the reviewers declared this book as definitive, must have been done by members of the O'Reilly staff, or by people who know nothing about coding and certainly never attempted any of the examples. Shame on you O'Reilly for scamming the public out of $30 for this travesty. I would give it no stars but sadly that was not an option.

Comments about oreilly Ajax on Java:

I like this book because of the code. I learn best by doing and my mantra is 'see one, do one, teach one.' This book has taken that approach of practical application. Granted, some of the code had to be massaged to work in my admittedly eccentric environment, but overall I was very pleased with the results. This book is not for the weekend warrior or novice. When you pick up this deceptively thin volume, get ready to work. As you work through all of the examples, you can really begin to get a feel for what Ajax can do for you in a Java environment. If you want no code and an easy read, go elsewhere! If you want lots of examples and plenty to keep you busy while you learn, forge on! Kudos to the author for his straightforward approach.

Comments about oreilly Ajax on Java:

Thanks to the authors for such a way of condensing so much and presenting the topics with the clarity that this book offers. I am new to Ajax but neither new to Java nor Struts. The book provided me with all the basic concepts I needed to understand Ajax, and went beyond that. I have other books on Ajax, none of them so concise and powerful like this. Thanks again.

Comments about oreilly Ajax on Java:

Sad to say, this book is little more than a code dump, and the code does not run without debugging.

There are no explanations of technologies and concepts that surround Ajax, therefore, given the state of the code, there is not a lot of reason to work through the book. In fact, this is the first computer book that I returned to the seller, simply because I found so little reason to keep it on my bookshelf.

The writing in the introductory chapter gives promise, but as the book progresses the code quickly becomes dense and the organization and writing becomes unacceptably thin. I expected more from O'Reilly.

Before I gave up on this book, I was half way through it, and only one code set had ran correctly from build on. For example, the author's code has at least four variations of the basic application URL sprinkled among the Javascript and build files of the first four examples. Finding and correcting the URL was annoying but not difficult, but even after that, the examples did not run without further debugging.

I finally threw up my hands and surrendered... defeated by the author's rush to publication.

Comments about oreilly Ajax on Java:

Steve has done a great job of stacking well known open source tools together in order to implement Ajax enable applications. The step by step instructions often include some of the gotchas you can run up against in implementation.

Ajax on Java is clearly written and rife with examples ready to use. If you are new to Ajax this is a great way to learn it using Java and open source tools.

Ajax on Java is not a Java tutorial and is probably aimed at the intermediate to advanced Java web programmer. Not to worry - any good beginning Java resource can guide you through anything in Steve's book that might be new to you.