Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006
Category: Editorial
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Ever wonder just how much all of those Ajax books that have been published are actually being talked about and used? Well, the Pathfinder blog wondered the same thing, so they
put together this analysis of some of the more popular Ajax books currently in print.
I’ve done this sort of analysis a few times, first with Knowledge Management, then with Business Rules Engines. I felt it was about time to do it for Ajax books.
The analysis takes the listing from Amazon, in the section of “customers who bought this book also bought…” surrounding the books and pull out how many of each are listed. Then they drop that data into Pajek and end up with these results poltted out to this structure
Included in the list are popular titles such as “Professional Ajax”, “Foundations of Ajax”, “Head Rush Ajax”, and “Ajax Design Patterns”. The comparison yields some interesting results, even if it’s not a perfect study. It’s good to see a more visual representation of how published materials are saturating the community.
- Ajax website security: Don't trust the client
Ajax security concepts aren't new; they're just applied differently, says Web security expert Billy Hoffman. Prime concern: The client plays a bigger...
- Ajax Learning Guide
Are you a Web developer? The time has come to rethink your entire approach to developing Web applications. Find out about the Ajax approach...
- Ajax Learning Guide
Are you a Web developer? The time has come to rethink your entire approach to developing Web applications. Find out about the Ajax approach...
- Security and Ajax
This chapter discusses security-related concerns that have particular implications for...
- Web 2.0 works for sales people
Web 2.0 applications, including wikis and blogs made possible by Ajax and service-oriented architecture (SOA), are changing the way sales...
How is this useful to anyone?
Jimmy,
the reason I originally performed this excercise in other domains was to find what the “good books” were. The books that are hubs and authorities tend to be better, in the wisdom of the crowd, than other similar titles.
Next, this analysis lets you discover, visually, all of the subdomains and “schools of thought” in a particular domain, and which subdomains connect with one another. The results here about languages may not be surprising, but the fact that .NET developers seem to be reading very different books than all of the other Ajax folks is, I think, interesting.