Bruce Perens

The Easy, Example-Based Guide to Ajax for Every Web Developer

Using Ajax, you can build Web applications with the sophistication and usability of traditional desktop

applications and you can do it using standards and open source software. Now, for the first time,

there's an easy, example-driven guide to Ajax for every Web and open source developer, regardless of

experience.

Edmond Woychowsky begins with simple techniques involving only HTML and basic JavaScript. Then,

one step at a time, he introduces techniques for building increasingly rich applications. Don't worry if

you're not an expert on Ajax's underlying technologies; Woychowsky offers refreshers on them, from

JavaScript to the XMLHttpRequest object. You'll also find multiple open source technologies and open

standards throughout, ranging from Firefox to Ruby and MySQL.

You'll not only learn how to write "functional" code, but also master design patterns for writing rocksolid,

high-performance Ajax applications. You'll also learn how to use frameworks such as Ruby on

Rails to get the job done fast.

• Learn how Ajax works, how it evolved, and what it's good for
• Understand the flow of processing in Ajax applications
• Build Ajax applications with XML and the XMLHttpRequest object
• Integrate back-end code, from PHP to C#
• Use XSLT and XPath, including XPath Axis
• Develop client-side Ajax libraries to support code reuse
• Streamline development with Ruby on Rails and the Ruby programming language
• Use the cross-browser HTML DOM to update parts of a page
• Discover the best Ajax Web resources, including Ajax-capable JavaScript libraries

Freely available source code, with contributions from thousands of programmers around the world: this is the spirit of the software revolution known as Open Source. Open Source has grabbed the computer industry's attention. Netscape has opened the source code to Mozilla; IBM supports Apache; major database vendors haved ported their products to Linux. As enterprises realize the power of the open-source development model, Open Source is becoming a viable mainstream alternative to commercial software.

Now in Open Sources, leaders of Open Source come together for the first time to discuss the new vision of the software industry they have created. The essays in this volume offer insight into how the Open Source movement works, why it succeeds, and where it is going.

For programmers who have labored on open-source projects, Open Sources is the new gospel: a powerful vision from the movement's spiritual leaders. For businesses integrating open-source software into their enterprise, Open Sources reveals the mysteries of how open development builds better software, and how businesses can leverage freely available software for a competitive business advantage.

The contributors here have been the leaders in the open-source arena:

• Brian Behlendorf (Apache)
• Kirk McKusick (Berkeley Unix)
• Tim O'Reilly (Publisher, O'Reilly & Associates)
• Bruce Perens (Debian Project, Open Source Initiative)
• Tom Paquin and Jim Hamerly (mozilla.org, Netscape)
• Eric Raymond (Open Source Initiative)
• Richard Stallman (GNU, Free Software Foundation, Emacs)
• Michael Tiemann (Cygnus Solutions)
• Linus Torvalds (Linux)
• Paul Vixie (Bind)
• Larry Wall (Perl)

This book explains why the majority of the Internet's servers use open- source technologies for everything from the operating system to Web serving and email. Key technology products developed with open-source software have overtaken and surpassed the commercial efforts of billion dollar companies like Microsoft and IBM to dominate software markets. Learn the inside story of what led Netscape to decide to release its source code using the open-source mode. Learn how Cygnus Solutions builds the world's best compilers by sharing the source code. Learn why venture capitalists are eagerly watching Red Hat Software, a company that gives its key product -- Linux -- away.

For the first time in print, this book presents the story of the open- source phenomenon told by the people who created this movement.

Open Sources will bring you into the world of free software and show you the revolution.