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Title: Rapid Application Development with Mozilla by Nigel McFarlane ISBN: 0-13-142343-6 Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR Pub. Date: 07 November, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $44.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (6 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Breaking New Ground: Mozilla Applications
Comment: This is one of the most fascinating technical books I've read in some time. This book teaches something you want to know about, if you are a web programmer. Your education is not complete without it. You can definitely handle this, too. Discover why RAD on Mozilla is cool.
Nigel McFarlane's book offers an introduction to the vast of the capabilities of the Mozilla browser. Want to build an application? Download and install a copy of Mozilla (it's free), get this book, and start exploring Mozilla's vastly sophisticated application development framework. You don't need deep expertise in Mozilla internals to get applications started. I am working on a project for a client that will emphasize graphics. This book is helping me get started with it, even though I have no deep knowledge of Mozilla's workings. I'm now dabbling with XML User Interface Language (XUL), XML Binding Language (XBL), and Resource Description Framework (RDF), thanks to this book. I'm also getting indirect exposure to Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), MathML, and Chemistry Markup Language (CML), as an unexpected side benefit. The Mozilla.org developers have implemented to some degree these interesting and deeply complex XML-related standards.
The book is easy to read. McFarlane is able to take extremely complex material and explain it in a way most people will understand. Go ahead, read the first few of Chapters 1 and 15: they will draw your interest and bring you into the next paragraph and the next. You can pick up this book, read the introductory material, and go right into Mozilla and start working. You will understand what McFarlane is talking about. The writing format should sustain your interest in experimenting and learning more and then going on to do your own applications.
I personally appreciate the choice of font, line spacing and font size. It seems easier on bifocal equipped older folks such as me. Each chapter begins with interesting diagrams referred to as "Not Perfectly Accurate (NPA) diagrams". They help you see how the chapter topic fits in to the application class object framework being discussed. There are all the things you come to expect of a good tech book: numerous screenshots, well-laid out tables, plenty of source code to dabble with. The publisher has done an excellent job of laying out and producing the book. There are very few typos compared to those littering many other technical books.
This book is going to give programmers using the Mozilla platform for applications a competitive edge. Mozilla, today, is available in many forms and is widely deployed. AOL deploys Mozilla in those stupid tin CD cans, and that gives Mozilla enormous critical mass. You can download Mozilla Firebird and Mozilla Thunderbird right now if you would like lighter-weight browser or email clients, respectively. Mozilla is catching on, and it is getting better every day. I highly recommend that you buy and read this book and then do some apps with Mozilla.
McFarlane suggests you visit his web site http://www.nigelmcfarlane.com/ , and it doesn't exist. Some readers might buy a book on the strength of the topic, the book examples, and the author's promise of downloadable source code. It can be disappointing not to see the promised web site and source code. But don't worry, the publisher offers downloadable source code through http://authors.phptr.com/mcfarlane. My other concern is that I wish this book were physically a bit larger in size. I like 8.5 inch X 11 inch page formats for books with a lot of screen shots and tabular data.
An overall must-have book.
Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent Information for Mozilla Programmers
Comment: Mozilla is earning new prominence in today's fast-paced Internet society. So for anyone who wants to know how to leverage Mozilla's power for their own Web applications, they need a decent practicum. Enter Rapid Application Development with Mozilla. This is a highly detailed book that starts at the beginning and ends at the end, such as it is. The technology is so open ended, it's hard to find a place to stop, so it is left up to the user's imagination and desire to take the technology explained in the book wherever they want to go.
Two of the biggest things Mozilla brings to the table are DOM (the Document Object Model) and XUL (the XML User-interface Language). For anyone who already understands the basic data structure of XML, they can realize huge benefits from Mozilla's XUL interface. The book details how to use these technologies to build exceptional Web applications which can be integrated with other technologies like JavaScript?.
From the most basic examples to the beginnings of large application examples, a reader can find most anything within the pages of this book. It can be used as a learning tutorial if read cover to cover. Or, with its extensive index consisting of topics, tags and assorted conventions, one could simply use this book as a reference guide. The only drawback I could find with the text is its limited scope. However, if you're not the sort of person who is going to be designing Web applications using Mozilla's tools, you would hardly be interested in this book anyway.
Rating: 5
Summary: Highly recommended for new Mozilla programmer
Comment: Nigel McFarlane has produced one of the most extensive books on application development using Mozilla that I have seen. His writing style is easy to follow and he wisely walks the reader through the creation of a useful example program. Longtime programmers will recognize the traditional "Hello, World" program as a starting point for learning how to program Mozilla. From this small beginning he moves the reader forward to writing a complete program. The coverage of Mozilla is thorough and provides the reader with all the basics they need to have a solid foundation in Mozilla. The XML User interface Language (XUL) is clearly described, the available tools extensively described and explained, and all the other important areas are covered including Listboxes, Chrome, Overlays, Trees, Events, Forms, Menus, Layout, Scripting, RDF, Bindings, XPCOM, and anything else you may need to know. This will not make you a Mozilla expert but it will give you all the basic information you need to program basic applications and understand more advanced books and articles. "Rapid Application Development with Mozilla" is a highly recommended purchase for anyone interested in programming web applications with Mozilla and Nigel McFarlane is the right author to take you to your goals.
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Title: Creating Applications with Mozilla by David Boswell, Brian King, Ian Oeschger, Pete Collins, Eric Murphy ISBN: 0596000529 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: Essential XUL Programming by Vaughn Bullard, Kevin T. Smith, Michael C. Daconta ISBN: 0471415804 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 20 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $44.99 |
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Title: Netscape® Mozilla¿ Source Code Guide by William R. Stanek ISBN: 0764545884 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 09 December, 1999 List Price(USD): $34.99 |
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Title: JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook by Danny Goodman ISBN: 0596004672 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: Practical RDF by Shelley Powers ISBN: 0596002637 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: July, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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