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Web Development Recipes
Modern web development takes more than just HTML and CSS with a little JavaScript mixed in. Clients want more responsive sites with faster interfaces that work on multiple devices, and you need the latest tools and techniques to make that happen. This book gives you more than 40 concise, tried-and-true solutions to today's web development problems, and introduces new workflows that will expand your skillset.
You'll see a full spectrum of cutting-edge web development techniques, from UI and eye candy recipes to solutions for data analysis, testing, and web hosting.
Make buttons and content stand out with simple cross-browser styles; do animations that work on mobile devices without plugins; build and test HTML emails; and build a flexible layout that works on desktops and mobile devices. You'll use the Backbone and Knockout JavaScript frameworks to build responsive user interfaces, and you'll learn how tools like CoffeeScript and Sass offer better ways to develop and maintain your client-side code. You'll write tests for your code that run in multiple web browsers, use Git to keep track of your work, and even get a little one-on-one time with the Apache web server.
Whether you're new to front-end development, or you've got a few years of experience, you'll become a more versatile developer by finding out how--and why--to use these solutions in your next web development project.
What You
Your favorite text editor, Mozilla Firefox 3.5 or higher, Google Chrome or Safari, and a working knowledge of HTML and JavaScript.
You'll see a full spectrum of cutting-edge web development techniques, from UI and eye candy recipes to solutions for data analysis, testing, and web hosting.
Make buttons and content stand out with simple cross-browser styles; do animations that work on mobile devices without plugins; build and test HTML emails; and build a flexible layout that works on desktops and mobile devices. You'll use the Backbone and Knockout JavaScript frameworks to build responsive user interfaces, and you'll learn how tools like CoffeeScript and Sass offer better ways to develop and maintain your client-side code. You'll write tests for your code that run in multiple web browsers, use Git to keep track of your work, and even get a little one-on-one time with the Apache web server.
Whether you're new to front-end development, or you've got a few years of experience, you'll become a more versatile developer by finding out how--and why--to use these solutions in your next web development project.
What You
Your favorite text editor, Mozilla Firefox 3.5 or higher, Google Chrome or Safari, and a working knowledge of HTML and JavaScript.
344 pages, Paperback
First published January 13, 2012
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72 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 10, 2012
Originally submitted at O'Reilly
When I saw this book become available I was very excited to check it out - the description talked about a lot of things I've been interested in with front-end development: JavaScript frameworks, Sass, CoffeeScript, testing tools, etc. When I received the book I was even more thrilled, because its index describes recipes about other tools I've used, such as Mustache, JSONP, CSS Sprites, and Selenium testing. As far as books go, this one was speaking my language.
I liked that several of the recipes were pretty common things I already had to write in real life, such as scripts for infinite scolling, keyboard shortcuts, or JSONP cross-site requests. The book also provided good introductions to frameworks I was interested in: Knockout and Backbone.
I liked how the authors cited a broad range of tools to include CSS maintenance, testing, and deployment to provide some useful tips at any point of product development. I particularly appreciated the citing of tools like Selenium and Cucumber. Although JavaScript testing usually gets some attention (and does in this book using Jasmine), usually browser testing isn't mentioned as much.
There were a few very minor things with the book that bothered me, but nothing severe. They used jQuery 1.7 for their examples, and used the live() function for event handling when jQuery deprecated it in favor of the on() method. I know this isn't a jQuery book, but as a jQuery user it stood out. Part of me also would've liked a list of alternative popular tools to each recipe (using Less rather than Sass, or qUnit rather than Jasmine), but limiting the variety of options kept the recipe discussions very focused. Neither of these issues detracted from the clarity and usefulness of the book.
Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this through O'Reilly Media.
When I saw this book become available I was very excited to check it out - the description talked about a lot of things I've been interested in with front-end development: JavaScript frameworks, Sass, CoffeeScript, testing tools, etc. When I received the book I was even more thrilled, because its index describes recipes about other tools I've used, such as Mustache, JSONP, CSS Sprites, and Selenium testing. As far as books go, this one was speaking my language.
I liked that several of the recipes were pretty common things I already had to write in real life, such as scripts for infinite scolling, keyboard shortcuts, or JSONP cross-site requests. The book also provided good introductions to frameworks I was interested in: Knockout and Backbone.
I liked how the authors cited a broad range of tools to include CSS maintenance, testing, and deployment to provide some useful tips at any point of product development. I particularly appreciated the citing of tools like Selenium and Cucumber. Although JavaScript testing usually gets some attention (and does in this book using Jasmine), usually browser testing isn't mentioned as much.
There were a few very minor things with the book that bothered me, but nothing severe. They used jQuery 1.7 for their examples, and used the live() function for event handling when jQuery deprecated it in favor of the on() method. I know this isn't a jQuery book, but as a jQuery user it stood out. Part of me also would've liked a list of alternative popular tools to each recipe (using Less rather than Sass, or qUnit rather than Jasmine), but limiting the variety of options kept the recipe discussions very focused. Neither of these issues detracted from the clarity and usefulness of the book.
Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this through O'Reilly Media.
April 15, 2012
Web Development Recipes is intended to give professional web designers a few little ready-made tricks for their client’s websites. Essentially, pop in the code and add a cool new feature to the site. Something that seems much more custom that it actually is.
The book continues a nice range of recipes: eye-candy, user interface, data, mobile, workflow, testing, and hosting. These include both basic and aesthetic elements. As the code is given as well as explained, most of these recipes are fairly easy to replicate.
Coming to this book, I had some very specific interests in mind. My sites are already made so I was mainly looking for tips on how to better optimize my sites for mobile devices. Therefore, much of my attention was on the mobile section. With that said, I did pick up a few features that I might use in a future website and found the section on testing much more useful than I had first thought.
The book continues a nice range of recipes: eye-candy, user interface, data, mobile, workflow, testing, and hosting. These include both basic and aesthetic elements. As the code is given as well as explained, most of these recipes are fairly easy to replicate.
Coming to this book, I had some very specific interests in mind. My sites are already made so I was mainly looking for tips on how to better optimize my sites for mobile devices. Therefore, much of my attention was on the mobile section. With that said, I did pick up a few features that I might use in a future website and found the section on testing much more useful than I had first thought.
October 6, 2015
The second edition of Web Development Recipes is a good and current view on web development as of 2015. Many recipes may be part of a framework or a plugin, but when you see how easy that functionality can be implemented, you don’t need to ad yet another dependency to your project.
A great help for me was the part on the workflow. There is an endless supply of current tools, but how do they work together? The book will give you a good selection of tools and a good explanation on how to use them. You are then up to tweak it as you seam fit, but not having to start from scratch is really helpful.
While not every recipe was useful to my, the collection of so many different solutions is worth the price many times over.
A great help for me was the part on the workflow. There is an endless supply of current tools, but how do they work together? The book will give you a good selection of tools and a good explanation on how to use them. You are then up to tweak it as you seam fit, but not having to start from scratch is really helpful.
While not every recipe was useful to my, the collection of so many different solutions is worth the price many times over.
January 13, 2015
For me the good thing about this book is that it collects and groups features that you should expect from a decent web application. From experience I knew that some of those features are provided in frameworks or libraries that are popularly used.
The book also gives you pointers to technologies that you might be interested. Yes, you can google it, but the book form gives you the comfort of confinement, as opposed to the open ended internet terrain. Strange that I did not find angular.js mentioned in the book (I speed-read though).
As for the solutions presented as recipes do not seem particularly interesting.
The book also gives you pointers to technologies that you might be interested. Yes, you can google it, but the book form gives you the comfort of confinement, as opposed to the open ended internet terrain. Strange that I did not find angular.js mentioned in the book (I speed-read though).
As for the solutions presented as recipes do not seem particularly interesting.
August 14, 2013
Maybe too many easy examples, but is complete and it offers a lot of interesting points.. deserves a read and to be held as-a-reference book
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews