Recently, a lot of people are talking about developing iphone applications. Iphone is hot and it gives golden opportunities for programmers. Seeing the great wave in technology, I have started my career in writing iphone applications, too.
Unfortunately, I am new to Mac platform and I am not used to write code in Objective-C. Therefore, I have to spend a lot of time learning everything from scratch. The learning process is hard and this recall me on how I learned jQuery two years ago.
If you want to learn a new language and get used to the language, you have to study the basic concepts, analysis examples and try to write you own. It especially took you a lot of time in searching relevant examples and looking up the syntax of commands before you can complete one piece of your own code.
Two years ago, the resources available for people to learn jQuery are limited. Almost all my knowledge was come from the jQuery’s website: www.jquery.com. And you can still find examples, syntax and basic concept there. The website had provided sufficient information for me at the beginning. However, as I reached certain level of understanding of jQuery, I found out that, if I want to have further understanding and improvement in effectiveness of writing jQuery code, I have to write my own jQuery plugins. So, I changed my focus to jQuery plugins and started to write jQuery plugins in a latter time.
As you visit www.jquery.com, you will find a brief introduction about how to write a jQuery plugin. However, the information provided is not sufficient for advanced learners who needed to write plugins for specific purpose. At that time, I was requested to write an online magazine using jQuery In order to apply jQuery plugins in my project, I’d spent a lot of time, searching relevant plugins from the internet and downloading them to my computer. I’d studied the code of the plugins line by line. I’d tried to use them and then rewrite them in my code before I could have a full understanding about every plugins I download. And, finally, I was able to convert my knowledge to a workable solution in my project.
If there was a book which had provided an in-depth explanation of the concepts of jQuery plugin, together with useful examples categorized by the nature of application, I could save a lot of time and I could have a shorter learning cycle in jQuery and jQuery plugins.
In the mid-December, I’ve received a book from Packt. “jQuery 1.4 Plugin Development – Build powerful, interactive plugins to implement jQuery to its best – Beginner’s Guide” which is a eBook written by Giulio Bai. I’ve started reading the eBook during my Christmas holiday. As you know, a book for concepts and examples is essential in learning jQuery, this book is what I looked for a long time.
During my holiday, in most of the time, I liked to sit in front of my computer with a cup of hot coffee. One day, I opened the eBook, I started reading from the front page, then I skipped the first Chapter, which is about the introduction on jQuery. On the other hand, as a designers of some jQuery plugins, I am quite interested how other people teaches jQuery plugin. So, I have read chapter 2 carefully. After finished reading chapter 2, I found myself quite satisfied with the book. In this chapter, the language is plain, the steps are clear and everything is quite easy to understand. And this is the first book that introduces the concepts and differences between function plugins and method plugins.
The topics as well as the examples in books are comprehensive: Image plugins, audio plugins, video plugins, form plugins, menu plugins, navigation plugins, animation plugins, utility plugins, etc. This book save us a lot of time from collecting different type of jQuery plugins. Thus, we can focus on those plugins that we feel interested.
The most valuable materials are always in the later part of a book. So, if you turn the pages to later part, for instance, Chapter 13, you’ll find a top 10 list of jQuery Plugins recommend by the author, Guilio. In this chapter, he had shared the findings and thoughts which he had spent a lot of time and effort before in studying those top jQuery Plugins. And he will tell you what’s the secrets for top 10 jQuery plugins.
I recommend people reading this book. And I think this book is especially useful for those who have the basic knowledge of jQuery and wants to have a in-depth understanding of jQuery and jQuery plugins. If you have spare time, you can try the “pop quiz” section provided in the latter part of every chapter. And you’ll find a lot of fun in do the pop quiz, too. Here is the link and cover of the book:
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