I’ve been reading Head Rush Ajax. I haven’t dug into Ajax technologies at all, and I really don’t have any pressing need to do so, but I thought it would be interesting to look at both the topic, and one of the books from the Head First (Head Rush?) series from O’Reilly, and our friends at Creating Passionate Users.
For starters, both the book and the topic are better than I thought they would be. I admit, when I first saw Head First Java on a shelf, my first thought (I’m ashamed to admit) was, Oh, great. O’Reilly is starting a “For Dummies” series. There, I feel much better. However, after reading many of the posts at Creating Passionate Users and perusing a few of the books at Borders, I gradually came to change my mind. Maybe it wasn’t “dumbed down” after all — maybe it was just different.
So far, I’m sold. I’ve read only the first two chapters, but I’ve only read them once, and I could still tell you everything I learned in them. To me, that’s pretty interesting — any method that helps me remember things is fine by me, however goofy or oddball it might seem at first glance.
So, as a pre-mature review, I give a big “thumbs up” to the book, and the whole series, if they’re all like this. Also, a big “thumbs up” to Ajax — a very interesting, effective, and non-obvious way of doing things on web pages. I look forward to trying some of it out… if I can think of some purpose to put it to. :)
