Showing posts with label web development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label web development. Show all posts

PHP 5 Objects, Patterns and Practice Review

PHP 5 Objects, Patterns and Practice
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PHP 5 Objects, Patterns and Practice ReviewFact of the matter is that PHP5 is a serious enterprise level development system. This book takes it seriously and presents both practical and architectural material at a level that used to be reserved for J2EE and .NET works. This relatively short book is packed full of well written and insightful content. It stars with the basics of PHP5 OO programming with detail about the mistakes in PHP4 that have now been rectified. That is taken all the way through advanced topics like reflection.
The author then switches gears and gets into the design of object oriented applications. Now that we have the right tools, how we should use them to make better systems, right? UML is covered, and so are design patterns.
The later chapters of the book cover solid software engineering practices, like version control and unit testing, amongst other.
Not only will this book give you new ideas at a coding level, it will also open your mind as an engineer and get you headed in a direction toward architecture and large scale application design.
An excellent book. A must have for any serious PHP developer.PHP 5 Objects, Patterns and Practice OverviewPHP 5 Objects, Patterns, Practice is a practical design and management book. It explains object-oriented programming in PHP 5, the latest version of PHP. This book explores the principles underlying design patterns (principally those patterns collected by the 'Gang of Four') and presents a range of patterns in a PHP context. This book also examines tools and practices that exist which underpin good software design, including unit testing, documentation, version control and automated build.

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HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible Review

HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible
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HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible ReviewThe title is misguiding. It's everything but an HTML, XHTML & CSS Bible. Title should read "Become a webmaster in a month". I expected to have: - The full HTML Specification with an example for each definition - Same for XHTML (DTD, rules to respect, validation, etc...) - Same for CSS and *PLEASE*, at least the basics of tableless CSS layoutIf the book were to expose the aforementioned information, it would exceed the 800 pages, and the author wouldn't have had to put some more information that is useful, I agree, but it's off-topic, sorry. The author should stress a lot more on standards. Standards are important, and one can't call a book a "Bible" if it only covers 75% of HTML, 50% of XHTML and hardly covers basics of CSS.It lacks information on the PNG file format (open source). Mention of the Opera Browser is almost non-existent, even if it's the most standard-compliant browser. Using tables to create a layout is old-fashioned and many good books (by Dan Cederholm, Jeffrey Zeldman or Eric Meyer) proove that one should *NOT* use tables for layout so that structure and content are clearly seperated from presentation. Without this discipline, the web won't be able to evolve toward XML.The book talks about image retouching, which again is off-topic, pretty much like SMIL, multimedia, FTP, maintainance, databases, weblogs, PHP & MySQL.I noticed several errors, and then I stopped writing them down. These are some of them: - p.93 PNG, is stored without being compressed doesn't loose color or image quality, and does support transparency. At least this can be achieved in Photoshop CS. - p.108 I find it sad that the author doesn't show how image maps are done with circles and polygons - chap.9 "Special characters" should show a sample for every single entity - p.184 The author puts the e-mail address into the code. How is it possible?! With all the spam problems people keep complaining, how come the author doesn't display the e-mail address thanks to a javascript to hide it from spambots? - p.188 in Part III instead of in Part II - p.210 He forgot that the label tag can nest the radio button and the text without ID. - p.284 div.div1 table should read div.div1>table - All examples are shown in IE or Netscape 4. Why not show modern browsers (Opera 7.8, Mozilla 1.8, Firefox 1.0) - p.379 user agent is not Opera but FirebirdThis is not a bad book, it has a lot of useful information, but what drove me nuts is that I wanted a "Bible" for these 3 languages. I had to buy other books. I hope now people who buy this book know it's a general-purpose book on web design.HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible OverviewAn essential update to the key web authoring standards of HTML, XHTML, and CSS
The existence of Web pages depends on three vital technologies: HTML (base language that Web pages are written in), XHTML (standards that define how to write HTML pages), and CSS (standard that applies formatting styles to Web pages). This new edition provides you with critical coverage of these three Web authoring standards, and places special focus on the upcoming releases of HTML 5 and CSS 3.
Serving as a tutorial and reference, this comprehensive resource explains the basic structure and necessary formatting to create a static (non-changing) and dynamic (changing) page on the Internet.
HTML, XHTML, and CSS are the three major Web authoring standards for creating either a static or dynamic Web page
Guides you through using HTML to create Web documents and introduces updates to HTML 5
Demonstrates best practices for using tools and utilities to create Web documents
Includes coverage of the new CSS 3 and tips and tricks for maximizing its abilities

Helpful examples round out this essential guide and will get you up and running with HTML, XHMTL, and CSS in no time!
Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

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Cascading Style Sheets for Dummies Review

Cascading Style Sheets for Dummies
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Cascading Style Sheets for Dummies ReviewFull of errors and mistakes -- not only this, but the author is impossible to follow. Had to buy another book on the topic. Stay away.Cascading Style Sheets for Dummies OverviewCascading Style Sheets For Dummies covers the essentials you need to know to incorporate CSS technology into Web projects. This friendly guide covers the enhanced features of the technology that allows you to have total control over the look and feel of your Web projects.

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Simply JavaScript Review

Simply JavaScript
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Simply JavaScript ReviewSimply Javascript by Kevin Yank and Cameron Adams lives up to the subtitle of Everything you need to learn Javascript from scratch. Javascript is a tricky subject to tackle. The Internet is full of Javascript snippets and code samples everywhere you look. Often times these code samples are less than satisfactory when you are addressing accessibility within your website. Many of the code samples contain outdated and proprietary code samples, making it a task to work out kinks and debug. The good news with this book is that they stick to a standard. All code used in this book uses object literal notation. Sticking to a coding style and format helps make this book an incredible read. Throughout this book you will learn the underpinnings of Javascript and how you can achieve different tasks.
Learning Javascript from scratch can be a daunting task. After all, there are several libraries and free scripts that you can essentially download and plugin to your website. But what happens when things go wrong? What happens when you need to modify the script to fit your needs? Having a solid foundation and understanding of Javascript will help you as you begin to develop for your own needs. This book gently walks you through the steps you need to take to achieve that solid foundation.Chapter 1 starts off with a brief primer of unobtrusive Javascript and it's role in the three layers of the web. HTML is your content. CSS is your presentation. Javascript is your behavior. These three aspects need to be separate from one another and also co-exist at the same time. Gone are the days of inline event handlers and functions. Using the power of the DOM you can rest assured your HTML will be pure and your applications will work flawlessly without Javascript enabled.
Chapter 2 spends some time setting up the foundation for beginners. This chapter walks you through statements, comments, variables and different variable types, conditions and loops, functions, and objects. Whew, that was a mouthful. This is where the standard of coding is introduced that will be used throughout the rest of the book. Things such as code indenting and formatting are touched on as well. This allows you to write clean code that is readable by you and other developers who may be working with your code. As stated earlier, all code uses object literal notation, and therefore this is explained in this chapter. A few examples are given and we are off to building some handy tools.

Chapter 3 gives you the necessary road map. This chapter is devoted to traversing the Document Object Model. A few helper classes are shown here that will allow us to retrieve elements by class name, add class names to an element, remove class names from an element, and check for the existence of class names within in an element. These will be used extensively throughout the book and are placed in their Core object. In addition to being able to traverse by class names, there is also the list of standard elements such as getElementById and getElementsByTagName. With these powerful tools at our finger tips we can now begin altering our pages as deemed necessary. The example given here is one of striping table rows. For those who don't do this on the server side, this simple task allows you to stripe your rows via the DOM.
Sure it's cool to add stripes to a table, but how can we do more? Chapter 4 is all about Events and the power they add to interacting with the DOM. The brief history lesson in this chapter helps us understand the different interpretations of different browsers and how we can use object detection to abstract these tasks into the Core object. Event Listeners and Event Handlers are both discussed in great detail. We move on to two working examples: Rich tooltips and Accordion. Rich tooltips are used to extract information from our title attribute and then apply them to a more stylish hover tooltip effect. Accordion allows us to save space on our pages by gradually showing the content as it is requested by either a click or keyboard event.
Chapter 5 gets us moving even more. This chapter is devoted to Animation and is probably one of the more complex chapters of the book. We are introduced to two methods, setTimeout and setInterval. Working mainly with setTimeout we are able to achieve our animation effects. This chapter looks at the principles of animation and an example of path-based motion with a soccer ball. We then use our new-found knowledge to extend our tooltip to show after a specified time, and our accordion is given a nice slide effect. We simply extend the code from our previous chapter to make these things happen. This is a good example of the benefits of working with objects and decoupling inside of your Javascript.
Chapter 6 gives use a few more tools to work with Forms. Forms are never easy to manipulate. Whether it be the style or the behavior. The beginning of the chapter starts with smaller scripts and examples of manipulating forms. This is done by specifying dependent fields and only showing them when necessary, and creating cascading menus from a select and it's optgroup. We then move on to some more advanced features for validation and creating a custom slider. These have been presented before in other areas, so nothing is really new in this area. However, this is all a part of understanding the bigger picture and the possibilities. It is about getting the creative juices flowing.
Chapter 7 discusses the inevitable testing for errors and debugging your application. We walk through the different types of erros: syntax, runtime, and logic. With each of these code samples are given with errors. We then use the tools of the browsers to make sense of their often cryptic error messages. In order to debug Javascript there is an invaluable tool in Firebug, a plugin for the popular Firefox web browser.
More interaction is still left as chapter 8 moves us to AJAX. Some very strong disclaimers are made as to when and where to use the right tool for the right job. Caution is also given in regards to assistive devices such as screen readers. With the warnings out of the way, we move to a some practical examples. The first is a small weather widget and the second is an extension to form validation.
The book finishes off by looking too the future of Javascript. Discussions of Rich Internet Applications and their place inside of the web help to stimulate your mind as you think about the possibilities. Not only about building applications on the web, but also using Javascript for such things as Dashboard Widgets and even browser development. In the hands of responsible developers, the future looks exciting for Javascript.
The Appendix is a very important part to this book, and I like its placement. The appendix goes through the Core methods used throughout the entire book. But why wait until the end of the book? Had this chapter shown up earlier it would have caused more confusion than necessary, and more explanation that necessary. As a reader you have the option to read this appendix first, but I felt it was well placed and covered thoroughly at the end of the book. By this point in the book you will have gained enough knowledge to dive in, whereas the beginning might have left you asking all the wrong questions.
If you have been developing Javascript for any amount of time, then you are most likely aware of the array of libraries available to us. These include Prototype, Scriptaculous, jQuery, Dojo, MooTools, and YUI to name a few. Each chapter of this book ends with a discussion of the libraries and how they can be used to help achieve the different tasks. Some libraries can achieve some tasks, while others still take a little work. The authors give a fair coverage to the libraries but do not dwell on them as the end-all-be-all of Javascript. If anything, the author's stress that you understand your Javascript at the core and know why you are doing what you are doing. This book sticks to unobtrusive principles and doesn't take shortcuts. The authors strive to make sure the code is of high quality and compatible cross-browser, but they never take the easy way out. Things such as innerHTML are put away in favor of building the DOM on the fly. This adds to the overall excellent quality of this book. The excellent code coupled with beautiful illustrations make this book easy to take small chunks at a time.Simply JavaScript Overview
Everything you need to learn JavaScript from Scratch!

Packed with numerous examples, Simply JavaScript is a step-by-step introduction to programming in JavaScript the right way. Learn how easy it is to use JavaScript to solve real-world problems, build smarter forms, track user events (such as mouse clicks and key strokes), and design eye-catching animations. Then move into more powerful techniques using the DOM and Ajax.
Learn JavaScript's built-in functions, methods, and properties. Easily integrate JavaScript in your web site. Use JavaScript to validate form entries and interact with your users. Understand how to respond to user events. Create animations that bring your web site to life. Start programming using the DOM and Ajax.
Unlike other JavaScript books, modern best practices such as progressive enhancement, accessibility and unobtrusive scripting are used from the very beginning. All the code in the book is also cross-browser compatible and downloadable for free, so you can get started instantly!


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CodeIgniter 1.7 professional development Review

CodeIgniter 1.7 professional development
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CodeIgniter 1.7 professional development ReviewI purchased this book because it was just recently published and I figured it would have the most up to date information on the current version as well as have current insights into the best practices for using the framework. By the end of chapter two, I was baffled. The writing style was unusual, superficial, and there were quite a few typos. At first I thought it was just a bad editor, but then I "Googled" the author. To my surprise, he's only 17 years old. The book states that he's had 5 years of experience programming in PHP. I'm not trying to knock this young author, after all, I wasn't programming PHP at age 12. But what was PACKT thinking publishing a programming reference book written by a 17 year old? Once the age thing came out, the writing made a lot more sense. The book supposes that the reader is versed in PHP and HTML. While some of the more complicated Codeigniter functions are glossed over with one sentence paragraphs, there's a whole page explaining what a carbon copy and a blind carbon copy are in an email. This is only one of many examples that made me question the competency of the material being presented. The book even mimics the Codeigniter style guide in the "correct," "incorrect," style of writing as well as the order in which the techniques are presented. There is nothing in this book that you can't find in the user guide or the many tutorials online.
I feel like I was duped by PACKT publishing and I'll certainly do more thorough background checks before any further purchases from them. A return is in my future... As for the Author, I certainly commend you. I certainly wasn't thinking about writing books at that age, but unfortunately, I think you were let down by your editors who should have provided a bit more guidance like "get some real life programming experience, then we'll publish." For everyone else, I suggest you spend some time in the native Codeigniter user guide.CodeIgniter 1.7 professional development OverviewThis book is a practical guide that takes you through a number of techniques. Each chapter builds upon knowledge from the previous chapter. Step-by-step instructions with examples and illustrative screenshots ensure that you gain a firm grasp of the topic being explained.This book is written for advanced PHP developers with a good working knowledge of Object Oriented Programming techniques who are comfortable with developing applications and wish to use CodeIgniter to make their development easier, quicker, and more fun. Basic knowledge of CodeIgniter will be helpful. This book will suit developers who fall into three categories:Professional Developers - employees of a software house or organization with in-house software development, Freelance Developers - solo developers working in the industry on their own, Just-for-fun Developers - people working with PHP building web applications is their spare time for fun.

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Silverlight 2 Visual Essentials (Books for Professionals by Professionals) Review

Silverlight 2 Visual Essentials (Books for Professionals by Professionals)
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Silverlight 2 Visual Essentials (Books for Professionals by Professionals) ReviewMatt has done great job in past writing good books but this is a failure.
This book says it has 240 pages but author and publisher have tried to trick you. At least tricked me. Font size in book is 16 that makes 30 pages 240. Book is more like introductory chapters on Sllverlight with no code. You probably can get better documents on MSDN. I would avoid this book.
Last few chapters are just one or two pages with MSDN classes copied.
Silverlight 2 Visual Essentials (Books for Professionals by Professionals) OverviewMicrosoft Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in like Flash that delivers rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports a number of different programming languages and techniques (making it cross-platform) and all major browsers (cross-browser support). There is lots of interest in Microsoft's Flash killer and several conferences have seen heavy support for the tech.There is little published information on this on the market now and we will be one of, if not the, first to market with info on Silverlight.This 175 page book is meant to give you a sense of what a programmer, can expect from Silverlight in terms of what the user is going to see. The emphasis here is on understanding what Silverlight has to offer. While there is some code given, that is not the point of the book. The point is to be ably to quickly understand what functionality is available, what options there are without getting bogged down in much code.We assume that the readers are mostly programmers and that they have an understanding of XAML. However, if you do ignore the code that exists in the book, then any lay person or even an administrator(programmer humor), can come to grips with the visual element of Silverlight.

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Beginning Drupal (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) Review

Beginning Drupal (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)
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Beginning Drupal (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) ReviewKnowing near nothing about Drupal, I wanted to find a book that would give me the big picture and help me develop a nuts-and-bolts working knowledge quickly. I saw so many titles online that I went to a physical bookstore so I could carefully look at the books and choose the most appropriate one for my needs. I looked at many books, and scanned the Introductions and Tables of Contents of several promising ones. I chose "Beginning Drupal" because it had a great balance of concrete examples, theory, and discussion of the implications of making various choices in Drupal.
After I purchased the book and began to actually use it, it became quickly clear that Wiley Publishing had not only jumped the gun in publishing a Drupal 7 book prematurely, but several other things really soured the experience for me. There was no discussion in the introduction about the fact that the book was based on early alpha and beta versions of Drupal 7, and that the installation instructions would install Drupal 6 which is so different that the exercises in the book are more confusing than helpful. Still, I persisted, trying to find the Drupal 6 equivalents to the Drupal 7 examples in the book. (of course this was not mentioned on the cover either, or on the web site. As a matter of fact, the promotional materials misleadingly call Drupal 7 the latest version, but don't mention that it has not been officially released yet). After I hit page 100, I realized that the UI differences were not the only problem. The book was not only unclear because of the version differences, but because the writer apparently didn't have the benefit of a conscientious editor to make the language clear. The grammar was sloppy, but worse yet, the meanings of many of the sentences were foggy.
I did switch over to using Drupal 7 beta, hoping that would help. In fact, it did help with many of the exercises, but there were also far too many instances in which the examples were confusing because they were based on earlier versions of Drupal 7. I looked at the "errata" published for the book, but they barely scratched the surface of the errors in the book.
I really liked the unfolding of concepts as the book progressed, in that sense the design of the book was brilliant. But it was sloppily executed, and there were numerous instances in which avoidable inconsistencies prevented examples from working the way they should have.
In summary, I'd say that this book was a well conceived but so poorly executed and rushed to market. It wasted more of my time and effort than any other "how to" book that I have ever encountered in my 4 decades in the computer business.Beginning Drupal (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) Overview

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jQuery Mobile Review

jQuery Mobile
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jQuery Mobile ReviewI thought this book "okay" for getting started with jQuery Mobile. However, I thought this book was going to be more than just a small introduction to jQuery Mobile. Don't get me wrong, it does provide enough information to get you going in developing your jQuery Mobile website, BUT it lacks in proper documentation.
This book was below my expectations for an O'Reilly book. You are better off just going to the jQuery Mobile website, and reading their documentation in all honesty. Beware though, even the jQuery Mobile website documentation isn't all that clear,also. So you will have to experiment.jQuery Mobile Overview
Native apps have distinct advantages, but the future belongs to mobile web apps that function on a broad range of smartphones and tablets. Get started with jQuery Mobile, the touch-optimized framework for creating apps that look and behave consistently across many devices. This concise book provides HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript code examples, screen shots, and step-by-step guidance to help you build a complete working app with jQuery Mobile.

If you're already familiar with the jQuery JavaScript library, you can use your existing skills to build cross-platform mobile web apps right now. This book shows you how.

Get a high-level overview of jQuery Mobile: how it works and how to use it
Learn about paging and navigation, including dialogs, Ajax content, and history
Employ jQuery Mobile's extensive event system to create rich interactions
Work with toolbars, buttons, lists, forms, and other UI elements
Create a variety of visual designs with jQuery Mobile's sophisticated theming system
Use the jQuery Mobile API for finer control over elements and interactions
Put everything together and build a mobile app from start to finish


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Drupal 7 Review

Drupal 7
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Drupal 7 ReviewA lot of time has passed between when this book was written and today. That also means a lot has changed in the development of Drupal 7. Reading this book is like playing a guessing game of how the Drupal developers changed things between the Alpha version of Drupal 7 (against which this book was written) and the current release candidates and actual releases.
I can tell you that over 50% of the content in this book is either **wrong** or **irrelevant** unless you intend on using an old Alpha version of Drupal 7 in production (not a good idea). This book was clearly written in an opportunistic way to capitalize on the upcoming release of Drupal 7 without any regard to its relevance once Drupal 7 actually comes out. I for one think it's a shameful way to write books and even though I have never written a review on this site, I felt compelled to warn others. The author should apologize for wasting my time and the time of any other poor sap who spent hard-earned money on this waste of paper.Drupal 7 OverviewThe approach of this book has been revised and updated for Drupal 7 based on comments from thousands of readers. The book takes a pragmatic look at the steps necessary to get a website up and running. Drawing on years of writing experience, David Mercer utilizes a friendly, engaging style that is both clear and concise-perfect for the Drupal newbie. This book is for people with little or no experience in website design, people who are not necessarily familiar with PHP, MySQL or HTML, and above all people with little to no experience in using Drupal.

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Coldfusion MX Developer's Handbook Review

Coldfusion MX Developer's Handbook
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Coldfusion MX Developer's Handbook ReviewFive years ago I was called upon to learn Cold Fusion over a weekend before starting a new assignment. I picked up Ben Forta's original Cold Fusion book and read three or four chapters on the way home on the train, picking up the bulk of what I needed to know to do my work in a few short hours. I've done a lot of work with Cold Fusion since then, and used that book to pick up many of the finer points of the craft, including the CFPOP and CFMAIL tags which I used to build a web-based e-mail service.
The web has changed a lot since 1998, and so has Cold Fusion. That book served me well, but with all the technological advances since its publication, I needed a new book that offered coverage of all the new features in Cold Fusion, from support for Flash and XML to invocation of web services and next-generation Cold Fusion components.
Cold Fusion MX Developer's Handbook fits the bill. It provides robust coverage of Cold Fusion's basic long-standing features, but also goes into more detail about maturing technologies like WDDX and Flash Remoting and their place in Cold Fusion applications. Many of the original tags had evolved significantly since I last made use of them, and this book offers thorough explanations of their new features. When it comes to new technologies like WML and Web Services, the book includes explanations not only of Cold Fusion's support for these technologies but also overviews describing their capabilities in general terms. (WAP/WML, for example, doesn't have specialized Cold Fusion support, but the chapter on "Working with WAP and WML Clients" not only explains the intricacies of a WML application but also how to use standard Cold Fusion tags to determine whether a client is WML-capable based on request headers and set the Content-Type appropriately for the response.)
I've definitely found the right book to help me "catch-up" on Cold Fusion, but the book would still be great for neophytes seeking to learn Cold Fusion from the ground up, as well as experienced Cold Fusion developers who need a reference to the product's many new features.Coldfusion MX Developer's Handbook OverviewColdFusion is an extremely powerful web-development tool. Despite its short initial learning curve, attributed to its accessible HTML-like, tag-based syntax, it provides sophisticated content-management solutions for large-scale enterprises. This has never been truer than it is now, since the release of ColdFusion MX. To take advantage of this power, you must step outside the box to learn skills as diverse as application design and Web Services development--topics addressed only briefly, if at all, in standard ColdFusion tutorials and reference books.
ColdFusion MX Developer's Handbook teaches you what you need to broaden your ColdFusion skills and become a fully capable enterprise developer. Inside, 13 ColdFusion experts provide highly detailed, advanced instruction that will save you countless headaches and let you squeeze every last drop of functionality from the newest release. You'll master database integration techniques involving advanced SQL queries, stored procedures, and database upsizing. You'll take advantage of MX's improved integration with other technologies, incorporating Flash using Flash Remoting, and capitalizing on full XML support to create Web Services. In your custom coding, you'll build and deploy Java and C++ extensions and wirelessly extend ColdFusion's reach with components that talk to WAP and WML clients.
All this comes wrapped in practical, hard-to-find advice for managing your content and applications and optimizing performance. Large applications with heavy traffic need speed and efficiency, and you get that with performance turning, load balancing, and caching. If you're working in a clustered environment, you need to understand state management. No matter what your situation, you'll benefit from in-depth coverage of application security, debugging, and coding methodology using Fusebox.
Every chapter is packed with the technical knowledge to give you what you need to create serious solutions. You might find that one particular chapter alone is worth the cost of the book because of the time and frustration it will save you. Most readers, however, will use various parts of this book at different times, depending on the constantly changing challenges faced by enterprise programmers. The mission of this book is to provide the extra skills you need to be a successful ColdFusion developer in today's demanding and expanding environment.

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Learning Visual Basic .Net Review

Learning Visual Basic .Net
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Learning Visual Basic .Net ReviewSuperb book, especially for people with good amount of VB6 experience.
I myself have around 7 years of VB experience (started with VB 3 in college) and before stumbling upon this title, I tried the Sam's series and was greatly disppointed since such "beginner" books devote a great deal to the syntax, starting with how to open a project and draw a form ! This book wastes no such time in trivialities since it is assumed that as an experienced VB programmer, you already know all those things. In fact, only one chapter is devoted to the syntax and thereafter it builds on the OOP concepts. At the time of this writing, I have finished only half the book (till Structures) but from what I have experienced and understood so far, I don't think the author will let me down in the remainder of the book. In fact till this point, you don't even need the Visual Studio.Net IDE since you can happily type all the class examples in Notepad and run them from DOS prompt (Of course, you need to have the .Net framework installed, which again is a free download).
So, if you're disappointed or bored by those 24 hour/21 day titles, run don't walk, to get this book !Learning Visual Basic .Net Overview
Most Visual Basic .NET books are written for experienced object-oriented programmers, but many programmers jumping on the .NET bandwagon are coming from non-object-oriented languages, such as Visual Basic 6.0 or from script programming, such as JavaScript.These programmers, and those who are adopting VB.NET as their first programming language, have been out of luck when it comes to finding a high-quality introduction to the language that helps them get started.

That's why Jesse Liberty, author of the best-selling books Programming C# and Programming ASP.NET, has written an entry-level guide to Visual Basic .NET.Written in a warm and friendly manner, this book assumes no prior programming experience, and provides an easy introduction to Microsoft's most popular .NET language.

Learning Visual Basic .NET is a complete introduction to VB.NET and object-oriented programming. This book will help you build a solid foundation in .NET, and show how to apply your skills by using hundreds of examples to help you become productive quickly. Learning Visual Basic .NET introduces fundamentals like Visual Studio .NET, a tool set for building Windows and Web applications. You'll learn about the syntax and structure of the Visual Basic .NET language, including operators, classes and interfaces, structs, arrays, and strings. Liberty then demonstrates how to develop various kinds of applications--including those that work with databases--and web services.

By the time you've finished Learning Visual Basic .NET, you'll be ready to move on to a more advanced programming guide that will help you create large-scale web and Windows applications.

Whether you have a little object-oriented programming experience or you are new to programming altogether, Visual Basic .NET will set you firmly on your way to mastering the essentials of the VB.NET language.


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Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Applications on Windows Phone 7 Review

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Applications on Windows Phone 7
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Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Applications on Windows Phone 7 ReviewOne of the most important developer space's on the Microsoft stack is the still emerging LOB app space for phone 7. This particular book is focused on SharePoint 2010 applications on Phone 7 which is an increasingly important sector of the increasingly important Phone 7 developer segment... yes I know a bit repetitive but still...
The thing in this book that really made it for me a "must have" for LOB wp7 folks is the fact that it separates the basic's skills need on each related platform (wp7 and sharepoint) and then includes the cross over elements of working with both platforms as well. Although narrowly focused this as I pointed out an increasingly important segment that this book is targeted towards and as an LOB developer sometimes myself its an important part of my collection.
The downside of this book would be the lack of depth for phone 7 and sharepoint specific information but that really is beyond the scope of the premise of the book so I can't fault that on the book but that also means that to make the most of this particular book you should probably look into something on sharepoint and another book on windows phone7.
Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Applications on Windows Phone 7 OverviewThis book is a focused tutorial that shows you how to create enterprise-ready websites and applications that access Microsoft SharePoint Server on Windows Phone 7. This book focuses on SharePoint 2010; however, some of the concepts and explanations will also apply to SharePoint 2007. If you are a .NET developer who wants to create enterprise-ready websites and applications that accessSharePoint Server on Windows Phone 7, then this book is for you. You should have a basic knowledge of Windows7 Phone and SharePoint Server. This book also assumes some knowledge of C#, managed code in general, and a basic level of familiarity with Visual Studio.

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Professional Plone 4 Development Review

Professional Plone 4 Development
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Professional Plone 4 Development ReviewMartin Aspeli's Professional Plone 4 Development is the most-anticipated Plone book since Martin's earlier Professional Plone 3 Development. For Plone developers, it pretty much goes without saying that Martin is an outstanding technical writer, and that his documentation of Plone's development environment is definitive.
What got my attention about PP4D was that the contrast between it and PP3D is very much like the contrast between Plone 4 and Plone 3.
Plone 4 does more than Plone 3, and Martin's book is bigger and has new chapters and sections to cover the new features. But Plone 4 is also sleeker and faster than 3. Its parts fit together better, and it's more approachable to new users and integrators.
Martin shows us that the same is true for Plone 4 development. Both the Plone 4 development environment and the PP4D book make more sense than their Plone 3 counterparts. The parts fit together better. Plone 3 development required that you know, and practice, both new (Zope 3 style) and old (Archetypes) development paradigms. You had to know how to use Python packages and Zope products, skins and browser views. And, I think the Plone development community (and Martin) were not really sure how these fit together and when it was best to use which.
PP4D is much more confident. Dexterity (content-type development framework) and Diazo (theming system) are much better ways to develop, and Martin is able to explain them clearly without having to burden the reader with some many layers of history. PP4D, like its predecessor, is still a book for experienced, versatile programmers, but it doesn't need to make as many apologies to its audience.
Professional Plone 4 Development is thus a better book than its predecessor in part because Plone 4.x is a better development platform. Martin's community leadership is -- of course -- a large part of the reason for this advance. But, the improvements are also due to the great work of the many folks on the core development and framework teams.
So, Martin should take a big bow. But Hanno Schlichting, David Glick, Laurence Rowe, Eric Steele, Denys Mishunov, Rob Gietma, Alex Limi and many others should be proudly joining that curtain call. Bravo.
Professional Plone 4 Development OverviewProfessional Plone 4 Development is written in a clear conversational easy-to-understand style. This book cuts short the preamble and gets straight to the point - building robust, content-rich web applications with Plone 4. Detailed real world examples are provided for each chapter. This book assumes that the reader is familiar with Plone from the point of view of an administrator or power user, has a basic understanding of web application development, and is comfortable with the Python programming language.

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Pro Internet Explorer 8 & 9 Development: Developing Powerful Applications for the Next Generation of IE Review

Pro Internet Explorer 8 and 9 Development: Developing Powerful Applications for the Next Generation of IE
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Pro Internet Explorer 8 & 9 Development: Developing Powerful Applications for the Next Generation of IE ReviewThis is definitely a "PRO" level guide to Internet Explorer. In the words of author Matthew Crowley, "...an insider's view on how the browser operates as well as intimate access to its public API..." The book delivers. I never knew there was this much to know about a web browser. The author starts with a good architectural overview of IE and then systematically moves through various topics on harnessing the features of IE. Chapter 2 (Interoperability and Compatibility) should be required reading for any web developer. There is great information about how IE works and how Microsoft has managed compatibility issues over the past few releases. I also found chapters 5 & 6 (Developer Tools, Debugging with Fiddler) to be very useful. The book is filled with code examples and each chapter stands by itself as a reference. I appreciate how the author starts each chapter with an overview of what he will cover and then ends each chapter with a summary. It you have to deal with IE on a daily basis this book can help. If you are writing applications for IE then this book is invaluable.Pro Internet Explorer 8 & 9 Development: Developing Powerful Applications for the Next Generation of IE OverviewPro Internet Explorer 8 & 9 Development teaches developers how to create and maintain powerful browser, application, and web service software that extends the functionality of Microsoft's next generation internet platform. IE 8 ships with Windows 7 by default, making the installed base audience for web developers on this platform immense. IE 8 has and IE 9 will have many new features and with web apps and cloud solutions coming to the forefront, this book is sure to please.

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Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.1 for Effective MySQL Management Review

Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.1 for Effective MySQL Management
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Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.1 for Effective MySQL Management ReviewI've been using phpMyAdmin since... Hmmm... Well... The times before I used to code in PHP. So when offered to review Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.1 by Marc Deslisle, I didn't expected to learn anything new, but I was bwrong.
The book is full of information for all kinds of users from beginner to professional. I only gallopped through the first chapters covering setup, basic usage etc. while luckily not covering basic SQL topics, so if you are new to phpMyAdmin and know basic SQL, this book may be the right one for you. Since phpMyAdmin has evolved in the last years and is still evolving, also the experienced user may find something new here.
About one third of the 326 pages cover advanced topics like the SQL validator, advanced bookmarking or the database documentation generator Although I've been using phpMyAdmin for years now, some of the covered topics were new to me.
If you are new to phpMyAdmin, you should buy this book. Even if you are using phpMyAdmin since some years, you may find Mastering phpMyAdmin useful.Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.1 for Effective MySQL Management OverviewThe book is a step-by-step tutorial for phpMyAdmin explaining and demonstrating the potential of this tool with clear instructions and screenshots. After covering installation and basic features of phpMyAdmin it goes on to show its less well known and generally under-used features and capabilities. phpMyAdmin is a must-have tool for everyone who needs to manage their MySQL databases and tables in an effective manner. This book is a must-read for every serious phpMyAdmin user who would like to use this outstanding application to its full power.

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Textpattern Solutions: PHP-Based Content Management Made Easy Review

Textpattern Solutions: PHP-Based Content Management Made Easy
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Textpattern Solutions: PHP-Based Content Management Made Easy ReviewI've been waiting a long time for this book.
Textpattern is a free, open-source content management system that is lean, flexible and powerful. Until now, the only resources for learning to use it were the various web pages: FAQs, reference wiki, the forum, etc. They are all valuable and responsive (the forum is very active, and I've seen a new answer to my question posted on the FAQ page the next day), but we "book learners" needed, well, a book.
That book is here, and it is excellent. At almost 400 pages plus a 100-page tag reference, there is plenty of material. It's very well-written and easy to read (if you're interested in using, learning or trying Textpattern).
Sections 3 and 5, with the conceptual understanding and the three website examples, are probably my favorites. Since I'm not a programmer, the chapter on writing plugins seems a bit over my head.
The only change I'd suggest would have been to move chapter 6, "The Textpattern Model," up front as the second chapter. This conceptual overview would help to understand "what" and "why," and some of the software's capabilities, before diving into the installation and setup process.
I wholeheartedly endorse this book as an essential introduction, manual and deskside reference for Textpattern in particular, and building dynamic database-driven websites in general.Textpattern Solutions: PHP-Based Content Management Made Easy OverviewIn modern web development, there is a big focus on using frameworks and other reusable code to build up web sites, rather than writing everything from scratch. Textpattern is one such framework, allowing it's users to build up standards-compliant professional web sites using PHP, MySQL, and CSS, with only a basic knowledge of the underlying technology. It's also open source, so free to use.It has become very popular, with tens of thousands of downloads to date, and is used on some high profile sites, such as that of Senator Ted Kennedy (tedkennedy.com.)We are proud to present the first book dedicated to Textpattern development, written by 5 experts. It takes the reader right from the basics of the subject such as installation, right up to advanced subjects like writing plugins. It also includes case studies and reference sections.

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The Definitive Guide to Plone Review

The Definitive Guide to Plone
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The Definitive Guide to Plone ReviewEarlier this year I was evaluating a couple of content management systems (e.g., Bricolage, Typo3, Plone) for a project. Every system had compelling features, but Plone provided the best overall feature set (e.g., search, templating, workflow, user management) in a single package. Plone runs on top of Zope, a popular Python-based open source web application server. Many consider Zope to be Python's killer-app, similarly Plone may be one of Zope's killer-apps. After my initial experimentation with Plone, I was really impressed with its ease of use and the power and flexibility of its page templating system. Strengths aside, Plone's online documentation did not adequately address advanced topics. I often found myself sifting through bits of online howtos and other people's examples to understand how to do certain things. Not only was this time consuming but also hit-or-miss.
Enter The Definitive Guide to Plone by Andy McKay. This book provides a series of task-driven chapters with practical information necessary for you to develop great web applications in Plone. The reader is assumed to be knowledgeable about HTML, CSS, the Web, and Python (for advanced features of Plone). Each chapter begins with an overview of what will be covered and uses examples to clarify concepts. A novice user can read cover to cover and come away with a working knowledge of Plone and be able to create relatively sophisticated web sites. A more advanced user can skim the chapter outline, pick and choose topics of interest and quickly find answers.
Who is the author? Andy McKay is a core developer of the Plone CMS project and an active contributor to a variety of Python-based open source projects. McKay also maintains ZopeZen.org, a web site dedicated to Zope applications and extensions. All the examples in this text were reviewed by well-known Zope authority Michel Pelletier, co-author of the Zope book.
McKay aims for the novice user in the first four chapters. Beginning with a high-level introduction to the benefits of content management, then on to installing Plone, and finally how to do basic content editing and customizations. Those of you getting started with Plone will find the chapter on customizations to be most helpful. It shows you everything from changing a folder's default page to altering navigational tabs, further demonstrating Plone's flexibility. You'll notice that some of the text in this section is fairly self-explanatory (i.e., form field descriptions). You should be able to get going with a moderate Plone site after reading this section.
The next six chapters (5-10) go under the hood of Plone, and aims for administrators and developers. Templating is one of the first stumbling blocks when learning to use Plone, remarks McKay. To that end, McKay provides an excellent introduction to the building blocks of Plone's templating machinery, Template Attribute Language (TAL) and Macro Expansion TAL (METAL). McKay goes on to show you how to develop Script (Python) objects and web forms. Next, McKay breaks down Plone's concept of "skins" - images and styles surrounding the content, using the NASA Mars Rover website as an example. McKay moves on to discuss content workflow, one of the more complex features in Plone. Although he manages to explain individual concepts (e.g., states, transitions) well, he could have used some tougher (more real-world) examples to help readers tie in these concepts. Finally, the last two chapters in this section explain how to setup site permissions and users, and also integrate Plone with other systems (e.g., Apache, LDAP). Users looking to customize an existing Plone site should pay special attention here. Be sure to try out the examples, they will help you understand the concepts faster.
The last four chapters tackle advanced topics such as developing custom content types with Python code and Archetypes, indexing, and scalability. McKay provides an in-depth comparison of two approaches for creating new content types. First, using Python code to define content attributes, and second using Archetypes - a schema-based framework. McKay points out that Archetypes is the preferred way for development of products and content types by the Plone team. You can even use UML tools to model your content type, then generate a schema using ArchGenXML. From caching policies to Zope Enterprise Objects, the final chapter presents several techniques for improving your Plone site's performance.
The Definitive Guide to Plone fills the gap between the inadequacy of online howtos and the need to read through someone's example to find out how a particular thing is done. Users of all experience levels will benefit from the authoritative knowledge of the author. The writing style is clear, to the point and neutral. If you want to improve your productivity with Plone, look no further.The Definitive Guide to Plone OverviewThe Definitive Guide to Plone is the authoritative, unique guide to Plone, describing everything from installing Plone (on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux) to writing code for the system. The book - part of Apress's library of Python programming and content management tools, and written by one of Plone's core development team - emphasizes the customization of Plone, and shows how to fully integrate Plone into an existing Web site and application. If you want to adopt Plone for some or all of its features, this is the book to pick up and learn by.

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Using Drupal Review

Using Drupal
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Using Drupal ReviewThis book has been eagerly awaited as the first O'Reilly volume covering Drupal, and having been written by such a rockstar team of Drupal pros.
It's also the first book to focus on a wide range of third party contributed modules rather than just Drupal core, or a narrow subject area of modules. It's written for Drupal 6, although the book would be fairly applicable to Drupal 5 (with the caveat that one of the major modules, Views, is completely different for Drupal 6 - the underlying concepts are similar though).
The first thing that struck me about this book is its fundamentally different approach from most early Drupal books, as well as the kinds of books you find in the early stages of any new technology's mainstream acceptance. It's not simply a higher quality rehashing of handbook pages and technical how-tos, but it has an incredibly cohesive and clever process through the entire book.
Every main chapter of the book will:
* Introduce an example scenario that's easy to relate to. For example, an early chapter that covers creating a simple site for a Mom & Pop shop has this sample case study: "in order to update the web page content each week, they currently pay their next-door neighbor Goldie to hand-edit the page"
* Outline what you're going to be building
* Explain why certain decisions or trade-offs were made when creating this site, and highlight alternative choices depending on your particular situation
* Explains step-by-step how to complete the site with lots of tables and screenshots, pointing out gotchas and important concepts along the way
* Ends with a "Taking It Further" section with suggestions for other features or future modules to watch that are related to the site recipe
The hands-on approach of this book takes you through a single, cohesive example in each chapter. This gets you building a site to completion at every step. This approach reminds me of the different ways to learn a musical instrument such as piano or guitar - you can start with theory and technique and practice your scales first, or you can just learn some chords and be able to whip out a few simple pop songs your first afternoon. This book is the chords.
It also has some great moments of explaining fuzzy concepts that are difficult to understand without significant Drupal experience. The Using Drupal team shows their years of expertise training users and implementing Drupal sites in gems such as this, describing whether you should use taxonomy or a CCK field for content categorization:
A general rule of thumb is that if you can remove the field and the content type still makes sense, use Taxonomy. An article filed under a "Technology" category is still an article if you remove the category association, so Taxonomy is a good fit. If the field is part of a piece of content, such as an album's recording artist, then CCK is generally a better choice.

Using Drupal will take you through building a:
* Simple website with blog for a mom & pop grocery store, including a WYSIWYG editor and uploading images to content
* Job posting board for a university, which introduces the key CCK and Views modules
* Product reviews site with user ratings, Amazon product data importing, some simple CSS tweaks using the CSS Injector module, and more CCK/Views
* Wiki, which brings in revisions, input formats, and Pathauto module
* Local arts news site, which takes you into Actions, Triggers, Workspace, Workflow (both as a concept and module), and Views Bulk Operations to create an administration page
* Photo gallery, with ImageField, ImageCache, much more Views and some site display tweaks
* Multilingual website with a strong overview of concepts, then Locale, i18n, and the Localization Client
* Event management site with calendar and attendees
* Online store using Ubercart (focuses on basic store setup, products, attributes, and orders - you'll still need to set up payment methods)
It also covers a few additional topics:
* An overview of Drupal, and where to get help
* Basic theming (this is the only time you'll see code!)
* Installing and upgrading Drupal and modules
* How to choose modules and participate in the community
So what's it missing?
Obviously Using Drupal only scratches the surface of the many, many types of sites you can build with Drupal. There are a few major topics you won't find covered in here - membership sites with protected user access, Organic Groups (a chapter that didn't quite make it due to module readiness for D6), more advanced magazine/newspaper-style sites with modules like Node Queue and Panels, multimedia (there's another book for that!), or social networking sites. However, I think they picked a great selection of site recipes to cover in a relatively small amount of space, and each recipe will get you a solid site built.
The book will also direct you to two additional resources available online: the finished demo site for each chapter for you to browse, and a download package containing installation profiles with the same versions of modules and themes used on each site. The installation profiles will set you up with a clean slate with your modules all prepared for you to start following along step-by-step in each chapter.
Other things I really love about this book:
* It isn't afraid to recommend helpful modules early, such as Administration Menu
* It highlights common newbie gotchas, such as using the blog module when you really want a story
* It points out future modules or alternatives to watch, for example, the WYSIWYG API
* It gives contrib modules such as CCK and Views the foregrounding they deserve when learning Drupal
This is the book I wish I had when learning Drupal. We're even giving away copies of it at [...] because we love it so much. I would recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone new to Drupal, intermediate users who want to take their skills to the next level or brush up on Drupal 6/Views 2, or anyone who actually needs to build a site similar to the recipes listed above. And, y'know, anyone else who's ever built or wanted to build a website :)Using Drupal Overview
With the recipes in this book, you can take full advantage of the vast collection of community-contributed modules that make the Drupal web framework useful and unique. You'll get the information you need about how to combine modules in interesting ways (with a minimum of code-wrangling) to develop a variety of community-driven websites. Each chapter describes a case study and outlines specific requirements for one of several projects included in the book -- a wiki, publishing workflow site, photo gallery, product review site, online store, user group site, and more. With Using Drupal, you will:

Get an overview of Drupal concepts and key modules introduced in each chapter, with a bird's-eye view of each module's specialty and how it works
Explore various solutions within Drupal that meet the requirements for the project, with details about which modules are selected and why
Learn how to configure modules, with step-by-step recipes for building the precise functionality the project requires
Get information on additional modules that will make the project even more powerful
Be able to access the modules used in the chapter, along with other resources

Newcomers will find a thorough introduction to the framework, while experienced Drupal developers will learn best practices for building powerful websites. With Using Drupal, you'll find concrete and creative solutions for developing the exact community website you have in mind.


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Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Unleashed Review

Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Unleashed
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Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Unleashed Review1,068 pages of info i organize my self for reeding it 25 pag pages per day im thru the 612 page already...i have found about 3 errors in it but it seems that almoust every book of programation have errors end i say it becouse before reeding this book i found alot of other reviews from other book and it seems that everuone of them have errors so at least i havent found that much....
i bought it becouse when i start to search in the topics it shows that they had chapters dedicated to:
add cart
check in check out
search bottoms
timeline
flsh function on dreamweaver
and i thought it was a good chance to try with a book that look more powerfull in resource...
im impres not only with the book but with the program it self wwoooowwwwww
gret resource for the ones that dont care if its a 1,068 page book jeje
english its not my first language so sorry for the error grammers...Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Unleashed Overview

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Practical DWR 2 Projects (Expert's Voice in Java) Review

Practical DWR  2 Projects (Expert's Voice in Java)
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Practical DWR 2 Projects (Expert's Voice in Java) ReviewDWR has a highly specific function and at 521 pages the reader could expect a thorough book on the subject, but I think you will be disappointed. This is really a 1-star book, however I gave it 2 stars because the author has gone to the trouble of putting this book together for what is a narrow readership segment within the software developer community.
Pages 129 through to the end of the book are a compendium of projects that illustrate the use of DWR. I don't like having to read through illustrated projects to discover general techniques. For example the first coverage of DWR configuration via annotations is buried in one such project near the end. You might strike lucky and find one of these projects gives your in-house project a head start but as a structured introduction to DWR this main bulk of the book fails.
So that leaves 128 pages for detailed DWR coverage? Unfortunately there is further disappointing news, pages 1 to 38 are just an elementary introduction to AJAX augmented with plenty of cartoons. DWR gets it first mention on page 39!
The final and only 80 pages of true DWR tutorial disappointed me further. The first 5 star book review here compliments the jocular style of the prose, unfortunately when you are looking for the few pieces of substance in this book these jokes only serve to annoy.Practical DWR 2 Projects (Expert's Voice in Java) Overview

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