Ajax in Action

I just finished reading Ajax in Action by Dave Crane and Eric Pascarello. I was surprised to find that I'm already incorporating pieces of Ajax into sites I've developed...I just didn't know what I was doing had another name. And, if you're like me, you've been attempting to create rich (fat) client interfaces into your web applications using CSS, JavaScript, and DHTML for some time. The book's examples involving these concepts will be very familiar to you.

I particularly enjoyed examples involving the XmlDocument and XMLHttpRequest objects. The authors did an excellent job of explaining the use of these objects within the Ajax framework...some of you may object to my calling Ajax a framework, but that's how I categorize it. Crane and Pascarello also do a good job of tying Ajax into the MVC pattern. Another bonus, for me at least, was an introduction to the X library of JavaScript functions for handling JavaScript across multiple browsers. You can find out more about the X library at cross-browser.com

If you're looking for a good book on Ajax, try Ajax in Action. It's money well spent.