Pragmatic Ajax: A Web 2.0 Primer by Justin Gehtland, Ben Galbraith , Dion Almaer

It's not just another book on Ajax. It's Pragmatic Ajax: a concise, complete look at a new way of envisioning and implementing browser-based applications. Ajax turns static web pages into interactive applications. Now you can deploy rich-client applications to clients without sacrificing the easy deployment of web applications. But to many folks, Ajax seems difficult. That's why we produced this book. As a Pragmatic guide, it strips away the mystery and shows you the easy way to make Ajax work for you. We cover the the basics of DHTML, JavaScript, and the infamous XmlHttpRequest call. You'll see how to add Ajax to existing programs, and design new applications to exploit the power of Web 2.0. Learn the three layers of Ajax framework, and when (and how) to use each. See how to create rich clients, use visual effects, add client-side validation, and handle forms. Write applications that degrade gracefully if clients don't support JavaScript. And see how to integrate your Ajaxified clients into Java, .NET, and Ruby on Rails server frameworks.