Sick of creating web sites that reload every time a user moves the mouse? Tired of servers that wait around to respond to users’ requests for movie tickets? It sounds like you need a little (or maybe a lot of) Ajax in your life. Asynchronous programming lets you turn your own websites into smooth, slick, responsive applications that make your users feel like they’re back on the information superhighway, not stuck on a dial-up backroad. But who wants to take on next-generation web programming with the last generation’s instruction book? You need a learning experience that’s as compelling and cutting-edge as the sites you want to design. That’s where we come in. With "Head Rush Ajax", in no time you’ll be writing JavaScript code that fires off asynchronous requests to web servers...and having fun doing it. By the time you’ve taken your dynamic HTML, XML, JSON, and DOM skills up a few notches, you’ll have solved tons of puzzles, figured out how well snowboards sell in Vail, and even watched a boxing match. Sounds interesting? Then what are you waiting for? Pick up "Head Rush Ajax" and learn Ajax and asynchronous programming the right way - the way that sticks.

If you’ve ever read a "Head First" book, you know what to expect: a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works. "Head Rush" ramps up the intensity with an even faster look and feel. Have your first working app before you finish Chapter 1, meet up with the nefarious PROJECT: CHAOS stealth team, and even settle the question of the Top 5 Blues CDs of all time. Leave boring, clunky websites behind with 8-tracks and hot pants - and get going with next-generation web programming. "If you thought Ajax was rocket science, this book is for you. "Head Rush Ajax" puts dynamic, compelling experiences within reach for every web developer." - Jesse James Garrett, Adaptive Path. "A ’technology-meets-reality’ book for web pioneers on the cutting edge." - Valentin Crettaz, CTO, Condris Technologies.

Asynchronous programming lets you turn you own websites into smooth, slick, responsive applications that make your users feel like they’re back on the information superhighway, not stuck on a dial-up backroad. With Head Rush Ajax, in no time you’ll be writing JavaScript code that fires off asynchronous requests to web servers...and having fun doing it. Head Rush Ajax takes you beyond basic web development with DHTML and JavaScript and explains how asynchronous data requests and more powerful event models can be used in the Ajax methodology.

Brett McLaughlin has become one of the most well-known authors and programmers in the Java and XML communities. He’s worked for Nextel Communications, implementing complex enterprise systems, at Lutris Technologies, actually writing application servers, and most recently at O’Reilly Media, Inc., where he continues to write and edit books that matter. His most recent book, "Java 5.0 Tiger: A Developer’s Notebook", was the first book available on the newest version of Java, and his classic Java and XML remains one of the definitive works on using XML technologies in Java.

Sick of creating web sites that reload every time a user moves the mouse? Tired of servers that wait around to respond to users’ requests for movie tickets? It sounds like you need a little (or maybe a lot of) Ajax in your life. Asynchronous programming lets you turn you own web sites into smooth, slick, responsive applications that make your users feel like they’re back on the information superhighway, not stuck on a dial-up backroad.

But who wants to take on next-generation web programming with the last generation’s instruction book? You need a learning experience that’s as compelling and cutting-edge as the sites you want to design. That’s where we come in. With Head Rush Ajax, in no time you’ll be writing JavaScript code that fires off asynchronous requests to web servers... and having fun doing it. By the time you’ve taken your dynamic HTML, XML, JSON, and DOM skills up a few notches, you’ll have solved tons of puzzles, figured out how well snowboards sell in Vail, and even watched a boxing match. Sound interesting? Then what are you waiting for? Pick up Head Rush Ajax and learn Ajax and asynchronous programming the right way--the way that sticks.

If you’ve ever read a Head First book, you know what to expect: a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works. Head Rush ramps up the intensity with an even faster look and feel. Have your first working app before you finish Chapter 1, meet up with the nefarious PROJECT: CHAOS stealth team, and even settle the question of the Top 5 Blues CDs of all time. Leave boring, clunky web sites behind with 8-tracks and hot pants--and get going with next-generation web programming.

"If you thought Ajax was rocket science, this book is for you. Head Rush Ajax puts dynamic, compelling experiences within reach for every Web developer." -- Jesse James Garrett, Adaptive Path

"A ’technology-meets-reality’ book for web pioneers on the cutting edge." -- Valentin Crettaz, CTO, Condris Technologies

Sick of creating web sites that reload every time a user moves the mouse? Tired of servers that wait around to respond to users’ requests for movie tickets? It sounds like you need a little (or maybe a lot of) Ajax in your life. Asynchronous programming lets you turn your own web sites into smooth, slick, responsive applications that make your users feel like they’re back on the information superhighway, not stuck on a dial-up backroad.

But who wants to take on next-generation web programming with the last generation’s instruction book? You need a learning experience that’s as compelling and cutting-edge as the sites you want to design. That’s where we come in. With Head Rush Ajax, in no time you’ll be writing JavaScript code that fires off asynchronous requests to web servers...and having fun doing it. By the time you’ve taken your dynamic HTML, XML, JSON, and DOM skills up a few notches, you’ll have solved tons of puzzles, figured out how well snowboards sell in Vail, and even watched a boxing match. Sound interesting? Then what are you waiting for? Pick up Head Rush Ajax and learn Ajax and asynchronous programming the right way--the way that sticks.

If you’ve ever read a Head First book, you know what to expect: a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works. Head Rush ramps up the intensity with an even faster look and feel. Have your first working app before you finish Chapter 1, meet up with the nefarious PROJECT: CHAOS stealth team, and even settle the question of the Top 5 Blues CDs of all time. Leave boring, clunky web sites behind with 8-tracks and hot pants--and get going with next-generation web programming.

"If you thought Ajax was rocket science, this book is for you. Head Rush Ajax puts dynamic, compelling experiences within reach for every web developer." -- Jesse James Garrett, Adaptive Path

"A ’technology-meets-reality’ book for web pioneers on the cutting edge." -- Valentin Crettaz, CTO, Condris Technologies

Sick of creating web sites that reload every time a user moves the mouse? Tired of servers that wait around to respond to users’ requests for movie tickets? It sounds like you need a little (or maybe a lot of) Ajax in your life. Asynchronous programming lets you turn your own websites into smooth, slick, responsive applications that make your users feel like they’re back on the information superhighway, not stuck on a dial-up backroad.

But who wants to take on next-generation web programming with the last generation’s instruction book? You need a learning experience that’s as compelling and cutting-edge as the sites you want to design. That’s where we come in. With Head Rush Ajax, in no time you’ll be writing JavaScript code that fires off asynchronous requests to web servers...and having fun doing it. By the time you’ve taken your dynamic HTML, XML, JSON, and DOM skills up a few notches, you’ll have solved tons of puzzles, figured out how well snowboards sell in Vail, and even watched a boxing match. Sound interesting? Then what are you waiting for? Pick up Head Rush Ajax and learn Ajax and asynchronous programming the right way--the way that sticks.

If you’ve ever read a Head First book, you know what to expect: a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works. Head Rush ramps up the intensity with an even faster look and feel. Have your first working app before you finish Chapter 1, meet up with the nefarious PROJECT: CHAOS stealth team, and even settle the question of the Top 5 Blues CDs of all time. Leave boring, clunky websites behind with 8-tracks and hot pants--and get going with next-generation web programming.

"If you thought Ajax was rocket science, this book is for you. Head Rush Ajax puts dynamic, compelling experiences within reach for every web developer." -- Jesse James Garrett, Adaptive Path

"A ’technology-meets-reality’ book for web pioneers on the cutting edge." -- Valentin Crettaz, CTO, Condris Technologies

Newbies need the code that’s in the book to work - this doesn’t.
The teaching style is light and humorous and that’s great and all (though definitely aimed heavily at 20-somethings), but when the code examples simply don’t work, glib doesn’t cut it any more. In a beginner’s guide book the code must be solid, even more solid than a book aimed at experts, because the beginner doesn’t have the knowledge base an expert would have to figure out obvious flaws. Unfortunately, what this book is presenting as valid working code contains major flaws.

This is the kind of book where you start doing the exercises and think "Oh, I can get this", then you end up banging your head on your desk because it seems so easy that you should be getting it, but nothing you do works. Then you lift the code verbatim from the book (and its *known* errata) and realize it also just doesn’t work. Hmmm. Then you find reviews and blog postings complaining that the code doesn’t work. Then you wonder how well the people that rated the book at 4 or 5 stars know the author...

In all fairness, the cute presentation does give a feel for the *conceptual* basis of the subject, but don’t expect to come away from the book with anything concrete that you can set into a functional web project, unless the code has been re-written in a later edition or on the web.

Hopefully Head First’s other Ajax book is a lot better to make amends for this lemon, or else I may have to give up on this series. That would be a shame. I agree with the series’ stated educational precepts. Learning should be engaging, thought-provoking and fun, but folks, the code needs to work(!) or else it quickly stops being fun.

Notice the "rush" in the title...
Notice the rest of the books in this series are all "Head First ...", but this one is "Head Rush ...". It was an alright introductory book at the time it was published, but there are now better choices. I assume it has been replaced in the O’Reilly / Head-First lineup by the recent "Head First Ajax" (seriously, I’m not kidding ... this is reminiscent of them remaking The Hulk, again).

Reviewing this book in a vacuum I’d say its strength is its very thorough, very tutorial, very well-illustrated coverage of the lifecycle of an XMLHttpRequest. Grokking asynchronous, callback-based programming is one of those quantum leaps in understanding ... like learning what a pointer is. So having a tutorial available is great. But I could swear that there were two chapters in a row that covered exactly the same example.

And does anyone know how I’m supposed to choose amongst these titles in the same series: "Head Rush Ajax (Head First)", "Head First Ajax", "Head First Javascript"?

Other worthy choices:
- "The Book of Javascript", Thau
- "Ajax: The Definitive Guide", Holdener
- "Adding AJAX", Powers
- "Building a Web Site with Ajax: Visual QuickProject Guide", Ullman

Now, go build some Web 2.0 thingy that replaces the Desktop OS!

Very disappointing
I’m a fan of the Head First series. They make a welcome change to the staid text book style of the majority of computing books. However I think this particular offering is not one of their better efforts. Maybe Ajax isn’t really that complex a topic and doesn’t require a book of this length, or maybe the author spent too much time on the Head First fun filled packaging and not enough on the content. I actually found that the Head First fun and frivolity actually seemed to pad out the book and unnecessarily labour what is actually a fairly straightforward topic.
If you’re familiar with javascript there’s not much more to Ajax than learning how to use the XMLHttpRequest object and handle its return codes. The other side of the coin is the way the server processes the request and returns text or XML back to the browser and this is where I think the book is very weak. Given the length of the book I felt that there should have been more detailed coverage of the different options for back end processing.
In the end I got bored with the book and sold it on ebay. The other Head First books I have bought are outstanding. Head First Java (Head First), for example, does an excellent job of making difficult topics intelligible. The problem with this book is that all the dumbed down explanations make you feel that Ajax is a more complex topic than it really is.

A fun read, but don’t use it on the job...
The book is humourous and a pleasant read, and a fun way to learn Ajax in your easy chair by the fireplace.

But *don’t* try using it on the job.

I tried building a real-world application with this as my guide - as I went through each chapter, I’d use the methods conveyed by the examples to build my own project. This went well until I got to the section on POST requests. As before, I adapted the example to my own project - and it didn’t work. The problem is that the code on page 299 is flat-out wrong, and they don’t tell you this until page 308 - after a several-page diversion into another subject. Then, on page 308, they finally reveal that on page 299 they had skipped an essential (but non-obvious) step.

Meanwhile, I had wasted about half an hour wondering why the back-end application wasn’t receiving any of the form contents, putting in javascript in the front-end to display what it was sending before it sent it, putting logging in the back end to dump the inputs to files for analysis.

My copy now has "WRONG" written in one-inch letters across page 299.

(I was reminded of an episode of M*A*S*H. An unexploded bomb was in the camp, and Hawkeye was trying to defuse it while Radar read him the instructions - slowly, one step at a time - from a safe distance. The instructions were something like "Cut the red wire. But if there are also two black wires, you must not cut the red wire.")

Authors, I can appreciate your writing style and your general method of teaching - but please be aware that some programmers like to test our applications incrementally, and leaving a booby trap in the code just wastes our time.

Avoid like the plague!
A conceptually solid intro to AJAX plagued by errors in the code samples -- see http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/headra/errata/headra.unconfirmed. Even some of the sample ajax apps running on the headfirstlabs site don’t work! For instance, visit http://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hrajax/chapter02/breakneck/pizza.html, type in a phone#, and watch as the php incorrectly dumps out all the addresses in the mock database. Did the author even bother to test out the sample apps?

We all learn in different ways
Some people prefer dense reference-like texts while others get droopy eyelids after just a few pages. Face it--this is complex material we are trying to learn. The O’Reilly Head First series has really figured out how to present concepts that can be difficult to understand, especially for people who are new to the field, in a way that makes it easy to learn.

If you are new to Ajax or if you have some experience with it but want to fill in the gaps, this is a great book.

Learn the fundamentals, quickly and clearly
This book does exactly what it claims to do: teach you what Ajax is, and the basics of using it. After finishing this book, I feel like I have an extremely solid base with which to read and understand a more advanced book. This book didn’t teach me any best practices, common Ajax patterns, cool tricks, or anything else fancy; it just gave me a firm, solid understanding of how to use Ajax, and that’s exactly what I needed.

Indirect learning - doesnt work for me
The book spends about 20 pages introducing you to their genius learning methodologies that keep you interested and involved. That would be great if I was reading this book to kill time and had to be kept interested with pictures and games. In reality, I want to learn the material as quickly and directly as possible. If you are like this, skimming the book is about all you can do. I skimmed it in about 20 minutes (I have previous Ajax knowledge) and it was an OK Intro refresher. If you are serious about learning this and have an attention span greater than a 6 year old, you do NOT want to get this book. It’s like playing Where’s Waldo for relevant information among the spam of dialog boxes and arrows zig-zagging across the screen.

With that said, if you are learning Ajax grudgingly and don’t care how much time you spend, this book will be great.

Worth the time and money.
I have never read any of the "head rush" series before... If they are all like this one, I will read many more.

This book explains the core of Ajax in the first chapter and that is what sold me (I read it in the book store over some coffee).

This covered very clearly what I have been looking for on the subject. Those items were:
1) What is the purpose of Ajax? Why would you use it? How does it help? (Looks great for more than GUI/UI, it also reduces bandwidth.)
2) What is the overview of Ajax? What is the application design workflow?
(The request, response, process, and update model is very simple and easy to understand.)
3) How involved is it? IE: will I need to learn tons of new concepts to use it effectively? (I turns out to be pretty trivial in concept if you understand web programming basics.)
4) What are the "catches" with browser compatibility? (Turns out these are more easily compensated for than I originally imagined.)

I could really go on and on about the questions that I had that were answered but the point is clear so I won’t write a book on this book...
=)

Buy it if you’re new to Ajax but familiar with Web technologies (PHP, JavaScrip, HTML, XHTML, CSS, DOM).

If you’re not ... ah... this could be really confusing or a VERY solid start to learning.

The PHP examples are simple PHP so you won’t have any PHP epiphanies reading this.

This book is worth your time (and money) if you don’t already understand the Ajax paradigm.

It was perfect for me.

Head Rush Ajax (Head First)
Very nice book. I am enjoying reading it. It brings new view to asynchronous web javascript using non formal approach. I like Head First series.

Not my style
For me, all the information in this 400 page book could have been effectively presented in about 50 pages, using a normal page layout with illustrations. While reading this book, I felt like I was wasting my time. Eventually, I found myself skimming the pages for nuggets of useful information buried in all the fluff (handwritten notes, arrows, and pictures of dogs and guys in ribbed sweaters.) I am willing to consider that perhaps the style of this book is just not right for me. But even for someone who likes/is compatible with this style, I believe the limited amount of actual information contained in this book makes it not a good value.

Contains some good information, but...
The top-most declaration on the front page of Head Rush Ajax is "Get it in your brain, FAST". A more appropriate comment would be: "Get it in your brain after taking a tedious journey down a long, winding road". I found some useful information about Ajax, but only after being frustrated by having to wade through an excessive amount of fluff, even if the dog pictured so often is really cute. Head Rush Ajax typically uses about 20 pages to present and explain material that anyone with any coding experience at all can learn in a paragraph or two. So, if you are an absolute beginner, this book might be just the thing, with entertaining inserts to give you a break if you need one. But if you’re even a little experienced with html, css, javascript or php you will probably find the pace to be way too SLOW.

Smug Style and Questionable Content
The content of this book is a little odd. It rushes through introductory topics for the browser side at the beginning to get you going, but has no discussion of what you might set up as a web server to model the back end for which they provide PHP code. This is especially odd given the emphasis on active learning; you can’t actually model the whole system from their instructions without other references. Having configured enough open source servers, I know this isn’t hard and could be handled in a short appendix. The comment in the editorial review to the effect of "have your first app working before the end of Chapter 1" needs to be evaluated in that light.

The Head Rush book series is likely something you like or hate. I find the tone of the authors smug and self-satisfied, and for me it works against their stated goal of really engaging the reader. The pedagogical concepts are not particularly new, but they have a theory they think is revolutionary so they have an overly assertive style: a "conversational" tone that is self-consciously hip, hard-to-read handwritten comments, and cheesy photographs and jokes. The same pedagogical methods could be presented in a much more neutral fashion. The style also means that this would be a poor reference after you gain some skills.

Nice book for AJAX beginners
This book does one good thing, and that is introducing the reader to AJAX.

Compared to other Head First books it is a little more repetitive, takes longer to get the reader’s head around the topic at hand and finally it has external requirements for the reader to be successful in going through the book in follow by example mode.

The external requirements of the book are:

1) You need to be able to understand PHP on a very basic level in order to follow through the examples in the book.

2) In order to follow step by step the book, you need to set-up your test box as a WEB/PHP server.

Requirement #1 is not problematic, #2 may be problematic to some folks, to others it may be even fun -- BTW: The page at [...]
I would have given this book four stars for beginners if the instructions for #2 would exist, at least in the head first site, but they are not there yet by 4/10/07.

Additional notes:

- Chapter 3 example runs dog slow in FireFox and does not render properlyin IE7.

Nice book for AJAX beginners
This book does one good thing, and that is introducing the reader to AJAX.

Compared to other Head First books it is a little more repetitive, takes longer to get the reader’s head around the topic at hand and finally it has external requirements for the reader to be successful in going through the book in follow by example mode.

The external requirements of the book are:

1) You need to be able to understand PHP on a very basic level in order to follow through the examples in the book.

2) In order to follow step by step the book, you need to set-up your test box as a WEB/PHP server.

Requirement #1 is not problematic, #2 may be problematic to some folks, to others it may be even fun -- BTW: The page at [...]
I would have given this book four stars for beginners if the instructions for #2 would exist, at least in the head first site, but they are not there yet by 4/10/07.

Additional notes:

- Chapter 3 example runs dog slow in FireFox and does not render properlyin IE7.

good especially for web beginners
This book is very thorough and has lots of great sample code with explanations. The text can be amusing or annoying, depending on mood (since I’m not a total beginner, sometimes I just want to see code and resent all the conversation). However, this text is quite accessible to web beginners, which is one reason I chose it for a course in summer of 2006. Recommended for beginners, or for anyone who wants their hand held through the dirty details.

good for learning the basics of Ajax
This is a good first book on Ajax. It shows you the basics, which is what this series of books is best at. It’s probably what you need if you need to get started.

Not so great ...good for beginners
I purchased this book because it was the "required" book for the course I am taking for Masters. But being a programmer myself for many years, this book is a waste of time. The chapters are lengthy and drags the content too much. May be a good book for beinners, but not for anyone else. The book lacks in-depth discussion and not to the point.

Helps You Understand AJAX
This book is for people who know JavaScript and they are a step above the "pop-up windows, rollover images, and steal scripts from the Internet" crowd. It assumes at least a novice amount of knowledge.

I’m the kind of person who needs to understand a concept before I get details, else I get lost. I was an ActionScript expert, and mediocre at JavaScript... but didn’t know what a DOM was. I read the book very quickly and I was up and running at work, where I was expected to be doing some very advanced stuff. This book helped me get going, but I couldn’t have succeeded without "Ajax in Action".

One of the founders of the Head First series is Kathy Sierra who writes the "Creating Passionate Users" blog. I’m not a big fan of blogs, but I read her’s everyday.

Excellent first book on the subject
This book is very good if you have no idea what Ajax is and you want to get an idea of the basics. It is very effective at helping the reader understand the concepts behind Ajax, but once the user grasps these concepts the book becomes pretty useless. The book is so good at teaching the basics, that it is has no value as a reference book, which is exactly how it is advertised.

My sole complaint about the book is that it only demonstrates php scripts for the server-side scripting. I would have liked to at least see one example of a Microsoft ASP.NET script.

Not a great book
I checked this out from my public library last night, and now am thinking about writing a letter to ask why it wastes money on stuff like this.

This book takes 30 pages to explain what other books would in a page or two. If you like lots of white space around your text and diagrams, this is the book for you. The entire book could be presented in a couple of chapters.

But that’s not the biggest problem. The book is solid on fundamentals but teaches nothing about Ajax design strategies or code refactoring. Many frameworks have evolved for developing Ajax applications. These can save programmers a huge amount of time and pain, but the book only mentions some of these in passing at the end. A better book, one like Ajax in Action, would make refactoring a big part of every chapter.

what the heck is this?
This book is really really really bad, im a fairly experienced web developer and I have trouble following this book. You will find yourself reading it in the wrong order as there are little snippits of text everywhere in handwriting fonts. not only that but you will find yourself flipping back and forward to find the solution it hints at but does not give.

Go find a formal book that will explain the nitty gritty

Another cracker from the HF stable
You may, like me, be wondering what the ’Head Rush’ appelation is all about compared to the ’Head First’ series. This is a slimmer book than the ’Head First’ series, coming in at 400 pages (compared to 700-800 for the HF series). Also, it’s focussed on a smaller topic. Apart from that, though, it’s exactly the same format as the HF books, with some old HF characters popping up. HF stalwarts may be surprised to find that Frowning Woman In Denim is absent from this book, though.

As a prerequisite, you need to know HTML and CSS. You should also know a bit of Javascript. Nothing too fancy, just enough syntax to follow variable definitions, loops, conditionals and subroutines. If you don’t know JS at all, I think you’ll have trouble keeping up. The server side code is all in PHP. I don’t know PHP, but it was close enough to Perl that I had no difficulty following it.

You also probably don’t want to know too much about Ajax already. In fact, if you’ve done a lot of Javascript before, you may find the chapter on DOM a bit slow going. You’ll find the pace just right if you’re someone who’s taking their first step in scripting on the browser side.

Brett McLaughlin proves he can do the HF style in this book. No worries there at all. In the first chapter, you could perhaps argue that some of the diagrams are over-annotated and have just too many arrows in them. In previous HF books, it was normally obvious what the flow of the diagrams were. Not so here, in a few places. However, from chapter 2 onwards, things are fine. In fact, the whole thing is a delight, as usual.

HR Ajax covers the basics very well and entertainingly so: what makes Ajax different from standard HTML requests, asynchrony, manipulating the DOM, and using XML versus JSON. Plus it mentions some browser-specific gotchas (including Opera and Safari), and provides very brief introductions to JS libraries like Rico and Prototype. Hardcore JS GUI-masters, this is not the book for you. Newcomers to Ajax, start here. You’ll be glad you did.

Another cracker from the HF stable
You may, like me, be wondering what the ’Head Rush’ appelation is all about compared to the ’Head First’ series. This is a slimmer book than the ’Head First’ series, coming in at 400 pages (compared to 700-800 for the HF series). Also, it’s focussed on a smaller topic. Apart from that, though, it’s exactly the same format as the HF books, with some old HF characters popping up. HF stalwarts may be surprised to find that Frowning Woman In Denim is absent from this book, though.

As a prerequisite, you need to know HTML and CSS. You should also know a bit of Javascript. Nothing too fancy, just enough syntax to follow variable definitions, loops, conditionals and subroutines. If you don’t know JS at all, I think you’ll have trouble keeping up. The server side code is all in PHP. I don’t know PHP, but it was close enough to Perl that I had no difficulty following it.

You also probably don’t want to know too much about Ajax already. In fact, if you’ve done a lot of Javascript before, you may find the chapter on DOM a bit slow going. You’ll find the pace just right if you’re someone who’s taking their first step in scripting on the browser side.

Brett McLaughlin proves he can do the HF style in this book. No worries there at all. In the first chapter, you could perhaps argue that some of the diagrams are over-annotated and have just too many arrows in them. In previous HF books, it was normally obvious what the flow of the diagrams were. Not so here, in a few places. However, from chapter 2 onwards, things are fine. In fact, the whole thing is a delight, as usual.

HR Ajax covers the basics very well and entertainingly so: what makes Ajax different from standard HTML requests, asynchrony, manipulating the DOM, and using XML versus JSON. Plus it mentions some browser-specific gotchas (including Opera and Safari), and provides very brief introductions to JS libraries like Rico and Prototype. Hardcore JS GUI-masters, this is not the book for you. Newcomers to Ajax, start here. You’ll be glad you did.

Boring, cliche and shallow
This was my first "head first/rush" book from O’Reilly and it’ll probably be my last.

The format/layout of this book is silly--even considering it’s an introductory book meant for the masses. Finding specific information or examples is hit-or-miss. The "humorous" tone of the authors is anything but.

Only get it if you are completely new to computers and programming, pretty much of no use to everyone else.

Wow, for me it was much better than some of the others
I have read or started to read different books on Ajax. This is the first one I have completed. I have been programming javascript,PHP,ASP, database interfaces for over six years. Have been using the DOM model in programming for some time.

No, this does not completely cover DOM, XML, javascript by any means, but it is a good book that shows you how to better utilize them and tie them all together.

But after reading and working through this book I feel I have a much better understanding of what I can do and with my experience and the knowledge I gained from this book, feel that I have a better idea of when to employ it’s use. I highly recommend this book for intermediate PHP html javascript programmers. Beginners may like this book and I wouldn’t steer them away, but it might be a little above their heads. Experts, what the heck are you looking for a book for anyway. This isn’t a reference.

Some of the plusses for me were:
This book used W3C standard compliant code. [ I never want to program browser specific code again ]

I use PHP 4.x. I read one book was coded using PHP 5.x, I started recoding the examples so they would run on PHP 4.x and got tired of that. Then installed a server with PHP 5.x. That helped but my head was still getting around PHP 5.x and what I could use on the servers at work which are still PHP 4.x.

[...] This was more browser independent and gave me some hints on browsers which I don’t use all of the time, like Opera and safari.

Warning to others, yes you will need a server which runs PHP to run the code examples. But if I were to choose one scripting language over another I would choose PHP, because people can get the server software to run PHP for free. There are also some sites which have PHP webhosting for a very small amount.

I did at times get tired of the jokes. But I did like some of the different ways he presented information so that I knew I wasn’t just reading it, my head was actually thinking about the different uses. It took me a couple of chapters to get in sync with the author, but after I became more comfortable with the format things progressed pretty fast. I finished the book in a weekend. Started Friday night on the first chapter. Did chapters 2,3 part of 4 in 5 hours on Saturday and finished the rest in 6 hours on Sunday. So roughly 14 hours on the whole book.

Great introductory book
Head Rush Ajax is a great book covering the introductory topics of AJAX, however if you already know the basics of AJAX and want to expand your knowledge to more advanced topics this book is not for you.

Great "dummies" book ...
If you are a complete beginner with respect to many of the skills needed for Ajax: HTML, CSS, DOM, JavaScript, then this book might be for you. All of the O’reilly Head First/Head Rush series are excellent teaching books and do a wonderful job at teaching skills in small bite-size chunks. Lots of pictures, exercises and games. This is about as fun as a book can get.

But once you’ve read the book, you’ll realize that you really didn’t cover much ground at all. 400 pages of Head Rush Ajax is about the same amount of Ajax technical material as 40 pages of Ajax in Action. All those fun pictures and games take up a lot of pages! Only the most basic topics of Ajax are covered. Much of the book is wasted explaining web-development 101 level subjects...

So it wasn’t possible for me to give the book 2 different ratings. As a pure beginner’s book - this is a 4 or 5 star book. But if you already know HTML, HTTP, DOM, and CSS -- then this book becomes a 2 star Ajax book because it teaches so little about Ajax.

HEAD RUSH AJAX--APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE APPLICATION!! HEAD RUSH AJAX--APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE APPLICATION!! ....
Do you want to learn , understand, and remember Ajax, with a goal of developing more responsive web applications. If you do, then this book is for you. Author Brett McLaughlin, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that in no time will allow you to write JavaScript code that fires off asynchronous requests to web servers.

McLaughlin, begins with an overview of how to use Ajax. Then, the author shows you how to send requests on different browsers, master ready states and status codes, and even pick up a few extra dynamic HTML tricks along the way. Next, he shows you how to send your users’ requests to a server, and let your users keep on working while they’re waiting on a response. The author continues by taking you on a stroll through the Webville Tree Farm. He also shows you how to write a nifty DOM-based application. Then, he shows you how to post data. Next, the author delves into a discussion about XML. Finally, he provides an extensive overview of XML and JSON.

This most excellent book is designed to show you how to learn Ajax and asynchronous programming the right way. More importantly, this book provides a visually rich format that is designed for the way your brain works.

So redundant and so boring
I bought 4 other head first series books, java, EJB, Design pattern, and Servlet. These books were fast, funny and of course, informative. I really love these series. However, when I read this book I was so disappointed. Most explanations are redundant and it made me boring and the reading pace was suspended. I think the author have to add more examples and shorten the explanation. I regret to buy this book. Not recommended.

Very easy to follow
This was the first Head Rush book I’ve read and found it an interesting format. Head Rush books don’t have the typical layout and feature hand drawn illustrations and notes you probably do yourself when studying. This Ajax introduction is very much for beginners with an emphasis on maintaining enthusiasm and memory recall while learning. If you are more experienced in programming JavaScript or any other language for that matter, you would be better suited to one of the "Professional Ajax" titles.

Good beginners book
It’s a decent beginner’s book. You really can boil the contents to about, say 25 pages or so. It feels like a Bill Ny the science guy version of an AJAX book (for those who remember who that is). The layout, is, honestly, a bit annoying - and looks geared towards 13 year olds. But if you can get past that, and the very slow pace, it’s not bad. If they cut out half the silly skits like "project:chaos" and the interviews, and boil it down to about 100 pages - it would be a great book... for beginners.

Grasping the big picture has never been funner!
The Head Rush series by O’Reilly is great fun! It’s a fun and quick way to learn a new topic. They are not reference books
so you will always want to complement them with a "heavy tome". But they are a wonderful way to learn dry, technical subjects.

The book uses PHP so you may find it helpful if you know that language. But since the meat of Ajax is mainly Javascript it’s not really necessary.

All the pictures and graphics in the book will give you a great understanding of how the client is talking to the server side and the different request states of Ajax. It can be rather complicated to understand at first. This book gets you through that hurdle with ease.

Many types of web developers may not know about callbacks and asynchronous programming. Here, the diagramming and frequently asked questions will be helpful.

If you don’t know Javascript, the book’s section on the Document Object Model will get you through the basics. But you will eventually want to buy a JavaScript book.

This book even includes a chapter an SQL Injection. This is not specifically an Ajax problem so it was rather surprising to find this chapter. It is good information though for any web programmer.

Near the end, a chapter talks about XML versus JSON. If you don’t know Javascript, you may not understand JSON from this book. But if you catch on quickly by learning from example, you will be ok with the discussion.

The book gives a very quick overview of 3rd party Ajax libraries. Probably not enough in depth to get you started using them but the chapter will at least make you familiar enough with them so that you can go research the ones you like.

This book is going to give you a great foundation to understand how asynchronous programming works, how to make an XMLHTTPRequest, and how to process the response in a callback. Through this book, you will get the big picture of Ajax programming and understand its fundamentals. This book should appeal especially to web developers who only want to know enough to "talk" to the back-end programmers with Ajax.

Once you have the fundamentals from this book, you can then buy another "encyclopedic" book to use as a reference.

Grasping the big picture has never been funner!
The Head Rush series by O’Reilly is great fun! It’s a fun and quick way to learn a new topic. They are not reference books
so you will always want to complement them with a "heavy tome". But they are a wonderful way to learn dry, technical subjects.

The book uses PHP so you may find it helpful if you know that language. But since the meat of Ajax is mainly Javascript it’s not really necessary.

All the pictures and graphics in the book will give you a great understanding of how the client is talking to the server side and the different request states of Ajax. It can be rather complicated to understand at first. This book gets you through that hurdle with ease.

Many types of web developers may not know about callbacks and asynchronous programming. Here, the diagramming and frequently asked questions will be helpful.

If you don’t know Javascript, the book’s section on the Document Object Model will get you through the basics. But you will eventually want to buy a JavaScript book.

This book even includes a chapter an SQL Injection. This is not specifically an Ajax problem so it was rather surprising to find this chapter. It is good information though for any web programmer.

Near the end, a chapter talks about XML versus JSON. If you don’t know Javascript, you may not understand JSON from this book. But if you catch on quickly by learning from example, you will be ok with the discussion.

The book gives a very quick overview of 3rd party Ajax libraries. Probably not enough in depth to get you started using them but the chapter will at least make you familiar enough with them so that you can go research the ones you like.

This book is going to give you a great foundation to understand how asynchronous programming works, how to make an XMLHTTPRequest, and how to process the response in a callback. Through this book, you will get the big picture of Ajax programming and understand its fundamentals. This book should appeal especially to web developers who only want to know enough to "talk" to the back-end programmers with Ajax.

Once you have the fundamentals from this book, you can then buy another "encyclopedic" book to use as a reference.

Good introduction to AJAX.
Probably not useful as a reference book but will serve well as introduction. The cluttered style with rather odd callouts can get a little distracting.
Having said all that, I still think it’s worth 4 stars because it does cover the basics in a serial fashion and the callouts did address some questions as we proceeded. Perhaps if the balloons were more serious and a bit more direct instead of attempting to be so cool they would be more useful.

Good introduction to AJAX.
Probably not useful as a reference book but will serve well as introduction. The cluttered style with rather odd callouts can get a little distracting.
Having said all that, I still think it’s worth 4 stars because it does cover the basics in a serial fashion and the callouts did address some questions as we proceeded. Perhaps if the balloons were more serious and a bit more direct instead of attempting to be so cool they would be more useful.

good for beginners...bad for professionals
If you are completely new to web development, then this book is for you.

If you have at least a moderate understanding of HTML, JavaScript, and the request/response model, then you don’t need a book on Ajax--especially this one. Ajax is a very simple concept and this book will probably be way too simplistic for you. Save your money and spend 10 minutes browsing the internet.

good for beginners...bad for professionals
If you are completely new to web development, then this book is for you.

If you have at least a moderate understanding of HTML, JavaScript, and the request/response model, then you don’t need a book on Ajax--especially this one. Ajax is a very simple concept and this book will probably be way too simplistic for you. Save your money and spend 10 minutes browsing the internet.

Makes my eyes hurt
I was wanting to learn something about AJAX, and this book caught my eye online. I wish I had browsed it in a store, because I could have gotten a book that would have been more useful to me. I’m sure it is an excellent book, but I think it is targeted for people younger than myself (I’m 47). All of the "hand written" notes with arrows, the "thrown on the page" layout, too many different fonts, it all just makes my eyes hurt, and makes it very difficult for me to follow. Will either sell it, or it will collect dust on the shelf.

Makes my eyes hurt
I was wanting to learn something about AJAX, and this book caught my eye online. I wish I had browsed it in a store, because I could have gotten a book that would have been more useful to me. I’m sure it is an excellent book, but I think it is targeted for people younger than myself (I’m 47). All of the "hand written" notes with arrows, the "thrown on the page" layout, too many different fonts, it all just makes my eyes hurt, and makes it very difficult for me to follow. Will either sell it, or it will collect dust on the shelf.

Good for beginners
But unfortunately not good for an experienced programmer. Headrush books are really good at teaching if you like to hear everything three times, each time taught a different way to you. That’s the headrush style; They use cute examples, drawings, and text to teach.

If you learn best by reading a reference book with concise examples, this book is the complete opposite. I’m one of the concise reference types, so this book was a poor choice for me. I have to dig to find the code examples, and when I do find them they’re tied together with lines or hidden on the branches of a tree.

Is this a good book? Yes, it’s incredibly well written. But it has a very unique teaching style that works for some, but not for me. If you’re experienced in HTML and CSS, and have used an object oriented language before, I’d recommend another book.

Good for beginners
But unfortunately not good for an experienced programmer. Headrush books are really good at teaching if you like to hear everything three times, each time taught a different way to you. That’s the headrush style; They use cute examples, drawings, and text to teach.

If you learn best by reading a reference book with concise examples, this book is the complete opposite. I’m one of the concise reference types, so this book was a poor choice for me. I have to dig to find the code examples, and when I do find them they’re tied together with lines or hidden on the branches of a tree.

Is this a good book? Yes, it’s incredibly well written. But it has a very unique teaching style that works for some, but not for me. If you’re experienced in HTML and CSS, and have used an object oriented language before, I’d recommend another book.

Very Friendly Intro to AJAX
I am no new-comer to AJAX having read a number of books including AJAX in Action (Crane), AJAX Patterns and Best Practices (Gross), CSS Mastery (Budd), DOM Scripting (Keith), etc.

I felt compelled to read the book based on my past experience with the other books in the Head First series, of which I have read all of them. Reading this pointed out some basic things that I didn’t pick up in the other texts.

The book is an excellent intro to AJAX and will give you a firm grounding so that you can facilitate your understanding of the concepts with the more advanced texts mentioned above.

Some people object to the style. I find it to be didactically refreshing. It’s very different - there’s interactivity - almost like having classroom training.

Some complain that it is repetitive. It is repetitive because it’s a known fact that we learn and understand key notions by having them explained to us in different ways - and it enhances remembering. It’s a form of diadactics. That’s a good thing.

I suggest that one read the Head First HTML and CSS book before reading this one if you don’t have the background - but I think the book doesn’t assume much, and can be read by just about anyone.

It also motivates the reader to seek more advanced texts on DOM manipulation, Javascript, CSS, and even server side technologies.

I really think that this series of books should be put into an online course format. Maybe using Moodle with a plugin that would allow simulating the examples. It would be great for learning because it would facilitate the hands-on interactivity that one needs to truly understand the concepts that they are trying to get across in these books.

If the course is developed properly, the book could be used to complement the online course - so the publisher would actually benefit with increased book sales. And, if there is a course designer/developer working along side the authors, it would also be very efficient to create.

Get started with Ajax, here
Ajax is a hot topic, now and Head Rush Ajax can get you started, quickly. While it uses the same learning principles as the Head First books, it follows a somewhat different format. It has less humor, less repetition, and a third less pages, really! Starting with a basic page using asynchronous communication, the book guides the reader into more complex examples. The final two chapters cover XML and JSON responses from the server script. The pre-requisites for the book should be a solid knowledge of html and some JavaScript exposure. Specific JavaScript functionality is introduced as required.

The example code is available from the book website. The server code is PHP script which may require some setup. Thanks to Apache Friends for XAMPP which will quickly install Apache http server, PHP, and MySQL quickly. If you do not want to create such an environment locally, links are available to run the examples from the book website.

Part of what makes the Head Rush book is the excellent explanations and the illustrations that convey certain concepts more successfully than text alone. A good example is the depiction of the HTTP ready states. It is also easier to retain and recall a graphic. The chapter on the Document Object Model (DOM) is particularly effective. This topic is extremely important in not only manipulating the page in the browser memory, but also in managing an xml document response from the server.

While I would have preferred the use of Java for the server side code, and the text contains a number of errors that should have been edited out, this is a solid introduction to Ajax. The code examples, illustrations, and easy to read text are combined to create an engaging learning tool. Enjoy.