Microsoft Silverlight Books

jquery cookbook review

If the author was trying to impress me with cryptic language, discussion sections that often had little to do with preceding examples and the occasional repetition of some items, then I was truly impressed. Actually, the book is is in need of an editor that can bring together chapters that appear to have been written by numerous authors.

flyfanatic
02 August, 2010

A fantastic reference

This is a true gem among other jquery books. Down-to earth, very practical and immediately applicable. Examples are consise, but well thought-out, and it covers a great number of different cases.

I would call myself a beginner jquery coder, but during the first hour of browsing through this book, I learned more about this framework than from reading any of the more typical "beginner's guide to..." type of book I've tried. Better yet, I could immediately improve my own website with several nice tricks from this book.

Marcin Lejman
07 January, 2010

Another Great O'Reilly Cookbook

The jQuery Cookbook, like the many other Cookbook series of books from O'Reilly proves to be an extremely valuable addition to any web developer's bookshelf. There's nothing unexpected here - it's a book full of practical solutions to hundreds of everyday problems.

The first chapter, "jQuery Basics" is meant to be a crash course introduction to jQuery, but it likely won't suffice if you're new to jQuery, and certainly won't prepare you if you're relatively unfamiliar with javascript in general. This book is primarily intended for the everyday jQuery developer who wants a reference for specific issues that come up in projects.

If you are familiar with jQuery basics, a cover-to-cover reading of this book will take you to the next level, but most developers will only read the entries that pertain to the problems they face during development.

The jQuery Cookbook was written by the jQuery community - people who have faced these issues in their own development and have solved them in the real world. I found that a majority of the recipes were well written and clear with properly tested and working code. All-in-all, the jQuery Cookbook is a useful and reliable resource for practical jQuery development.


Adam Barney
06 January, 2010

Full of "recipes"

This book is full of jQuery "recipes", by recipes the author is supplying a set short problems, solutions, and discussions covering a concept. Most of the recipes are between one and two pages and cover a wide variety of jQuery. Although I read this book cover to cover, it is probably better as a reference tool. It starts out with simple examples and progresses into more advanced examples. Still this book appears to be aimed more at the beginner to intermediate. Having very little jQuery experience I found the book quite easy to follow and examples easy to understand.

Although the book is mostly examples, it does address some interesting concepts, such as the concept of putting your JavaScript at the end of the page to enhance performance.

I like to type code when studying a book, but all the examples are on the web and can be viewed without writing any code. You can also do a "view page" and copy all the code to be modified if you want to use it. I don't normally give five stars for books, but I did for this one. I find it very useful and keep it on the desk for easy reference. Even an advanced person might find a few gems in it, which they could find useful.

George
02 January, 2010

Great Book on jQuery to Get Started

jQuery is considered the most popular and easy to use JavaScript library. It used by websites big and small with large corportations like Google and MSN. Although there are a few books on jQuery already and the jQuery website ([...]) has lots of useful information, there is still a lacking of a good jQuery book that can show the reader some very useful ways to use jQuery. This is an excellent book on showing the introductory to intermediate developers how to use jQuery efficiently and quickly.

Chapter 1 : jQuery Basics
Chapter 2 : Selecting Elements with jQuery
Chapter 3 : Beyond the Basics
Chapter 4 : jQuery Utilities
Chapter 5 : Faster, Simpler, More Fun
Chapter 6 : Dimensions
Chapter 7 : Effects
Chapter 8 : Events
Chapter 9 : Advanced Events
Chapter 10 : HTML Form Enhancements from Scratch
Chapter 11 : HTML Form Enhancements with Plugins
Chapter 12 : jQuery Plugins
Chapter 13 : Interface Components from Scratch
Chapter 14 : User Interfaces with jQuery UI
Chapter 15 : jQuery UI Theming
Chapter 16 : jQuery, Ajax, Data Formats: HTML, XML, JSON, JSONP
Chapter 17 : Using jQuery in Large Projects
Chapter 18 : Unit Testing

The author takes the reader through the entire gambit of jQuery lerning from the basics of selecting elements, utilites, and effects to advanced event handling, ajax and plugins and much more.

This 'cookbook' can be used as either a learning tool for the beginner or as a reference book for the seasoned jQuery user who needs to find a script or technique quickly.

A great book and definitely worth buying if you really want to learn jQuery.

Frank Stepanski
19 December, 2009