Top Rated Ajax Books

All the books listed here have at least a 4 star rating and have been reviewed by at least 10 reviewers. Some reviews are included.

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  Ajax in Action
  by Dave Crane, Eric Pascarello, Darren James
  
  Best AJAX Book Available Today:
  Ajax in Action by Dave Crane is the best Ajax book on the market today. With over 600 pages of content, this incredibly well-written text explains why Ajax is so powerful and how this simple programming feature (it really isn't difficult to learn at all) has changed web development forever. No longer are users and developers limited to a page reload world, as the power of this technology now has the ability to make the web work like regular applications. It's a trend that has been desired for a loooong time and boy does it ever deliver!!!
  

  Chapter Overview:
  
  01. Ajax background
  02. Learning to use Ajax
  03. Order with Ajax
  04. Pages as applications
  05. Serve role
  06. User experience
  07. Security and Ajax
  08. Ajax performance
  09. Dynamic double combo example
  10. Type ahead example
  11. Enhanced Ajax web portal
  12. Live search using XSLT
  13. Stand-Alone apps with Ajax
  

• 
  Professional Ajax (Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)
  
  by Nicholas C. Zakas, Jeremy McPeak, Joe Fawcett
  
  The book does a good job academically of showing how Ajax has evolved (itself a debatable topic) and how it is used in modern-day applications. The book doesn't marry the reader to any one particular web development framework, effectively citing examples in PHP, .NET, and JavaServer Pages. Practically, the authors exhibit a proper mix of (X)HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Dynamic HTML and XmlHttpRequests, showing how the technologies are blended for developing next-gen UIs.
• 
  AJAX and PHP: Building Responsive Web Applications (Paperback)
  by Cristian Darie, Bogdan Brinzarea, Filip Chereches-Tosa, Mihai Bucica
  
  AJAX and PHP by Example:This book teaches by example. The first few chapters introduce AJAX and what part PHP, Javascript and XML all play. Then the remainder of the book takes you through several example applications. The example apps are simple enough that you can easily follow. These applications include Form Validation, Chat, Suggest and Autocomplete, Charting with SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), using grids, and Drag and Drop.
• 
  Ajax For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)) (Paperback)
  by Steve Ph.D. Holzner
  
  Good coverage with some unique features: Ajax is obviously one of the hot web technologies these days, and now we have the Dummies title that covers it... Ajax for Dummies by Steve Holzner. While it might be easy to write this off as "just another Dummies book", I don't know that I'd be so hasty...
  

  Contents:
  Part 1 - Getting Started: Ajax 101; It's All About JavaScript
  Part 2 - Programming in Ajax: Getting to Know Ajax; Ajax in Depth
  Part 3 - Ajax Frameworks: Introducing Ajax Frameworks; More Powerful Ajax Frameworks; Server-Side Ajax Frameworks
  Part 4 - In-Depth Ajax Power: Handling XML in Ajax Applications; Working with Cascading Style Sheets in Ajax Applications; Working with Ajax and PHP
  Part 5 - The Part of Tens: Ten Ajax Design Issues You Should Know About; Ten Super-Useful Ajax Resources