"Prototype and script.aculo.us": the book is out!
Christophe Porteneuve
You use Prototype and script.aculo.us daily. I am confident they
fulfill their mission of easing the development of dynamic web
applications, and I certainly hope you're happy with them.
Since last Christmas, Prototype has been gifted with an excellent online
documentation at http://prototypejs.org. Thanks to the tireless efforts
of Justin Palmer, Mislav Marohnić, Tobie Langel and, to perhaps a lesser
degree, your truly, this site now offers up-to-date information on the
latest public version of Prototype (at this time, 1.5.1).
There are also a few tutorial-style articles. But a few is much more
than what is needed. If the messages on the RubyOnRails-Spinoffs
mailing list tell us anything, it is that there is great need for a
comprehensive, integrated, example-rich doc. Tens of thousands of web
developers around the world use Prototype and script.aculo.us daily;
they are the most popular JavaScript libraries; and there is need for
good documentation material.
There is a need for good books dedicated entirely to them.
2007 will see such books come up, starting with "Prototype and
script.aculo.us," released now in the Beta Book program of The Pragmatic
Programmers. Yes, this is the publishing house that gave you numerous
priceless books such as Agile Web Development With Rails, Pragmatic
Version Control, Programming Ruby, and many more.
The book's page is here:
http://books.pragprog.com/titles/cppsu/
You can already order the PDF, or the PDF+Paper combo (paper to be
shipped once the book is finalized). You'll get updated versions of the
beta as time goes by, until the final version is released (which you
obviously get as well).
I have been writing "Prototype and script.aculo.us" and a first Beta,
about 250-page long, containing the Prototype part, is now available
online. A complete coverage of script.aculo.us (about 150-page long at
present estimates) is being finalized, and will become available later
through a new beta.
But don't wait! Grab the beta now, and HELP ME HELP YOU by submitting
errata, suggestions and other comments!
It is my most fervent hope that this book will accomplish its mission:
provide all who need it with comprehensive, in-depth, detailed knowledge
of Prototype and script.aculo.us proper use, best practices, and keys to
fully leveraging their awesome power. If you've subscribed to the ML
for long enough, you know I love to help. This book is the next step.
Much, much more help. For you.
Spinoffs'ly yours,
--
Christophe Porteneuve a.k.a. TDD
"[They] did not know it was impossible, so they did it." --Mark Twain
Email: t...@tddsworld.com
Andrew Kaspick
Good work.
One thing that came to mind while reading chapter 7, is that you very
slightly mention file fields when serializing forms via AJAX, but I
think you may want to expand a bit on that subject (unless it's there,
but I missed it). It's a topic that comes up quite often and I can
see people wanting to know a bit more about it.
Andrew
Christophe Porteneuve
Andrew Kaspick a écrit :
> I quickly read over your two free chapters and they look rather nice.
> Good work.
Thank you!
> One thing that came to mind while reading chapter 7, is that you very
> slightly mention file fields when serializing forms via AJAX, but I
> think you may want to expand a bit on that subject (unless it's there,
> but I missed it). It's a topic that comes up quite often and I can
> see people wanting to know a bit more about it.
It is a recurring subject. I didn't mention it because Prototype
doesn't offer it right now, but since this may well change in 2.0 and
people should get pointers for non-covered needs anyhow, I'll put that
in. Thanks for the heads up.
Dave Crane
I'll look forward to reading it. It's always exciting when a writing project
gets to this stage, well done.
Cheers,
Dave Crane
----------------------
Author
Ajax in Action http://manning.com/crane
Ajax in Practice http://manning.com/crane2
Prototype & Scriptaculous in Action http://manning.com/crane3
Sébastien Grosjean - ZenCocoon
Nice work !!!
I didn't add much time yet to read the free parts but I'm already
convinced that it's worth buying it !
Already using prototype since now more than a year, small contributor
of it and publishing some open source add-on for script.aculo.us, I'm
sure to learn thousands things in this book.
Well this apart, I sent 2 small typo errata that I'll let you check
out.
It have to be said again, GREAT WORK !
--
Sébastien Grosjean - ZenCocoon