March 2005 Archives

Having updated Java in a Nutshell (see below), and nearing a feature-complete release of Jude (also see below) , I'm turning my attention back to JavaScript, in order to begin an update of JavaScript: The Definitive Guide

Of course what I discover is that everyone is talking about Ajax.

And I want it to stop! The concept is great. The name is lousy.

The term "Ajax" was coined in a blog entry by Jesse James Garrett of Adaptive Path. It stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML..

Here's why I don't like it:

The 5th edition of the increasingly inacurately named* book Java in a Nutshell is out!

My copies arrived yesterday. Amazon is not yet showing same-day shipping, but I'm sure their copies are almost there, and should be ready to ship very soon.

This edition of the book covers Java 5.0 and weighs in at 1200 pages. The major new language features (generics, enums, annotations) are covered in a new chapter of their own. Less major new features (for/in loop, autoboxing, varargs, static imports, covariant returns) are discussed in chapter 2. I'm partiicularly pleased with Chapter 5, which is 95 dense pages of examples that demonstrate how to use the most important classes and packages of the J2SE platform. The API quickref has of course been updated to reflect the new syntax of generics, annotations and enumerated types.

See the amazon box to the left if you want to buy this book!

*With apologies to the late Douglas Adams