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As they’ve done with most popular technologies, Microsoft took Ajax and wrapped it up into a form that is tightly integrated with their own software framework. The result is what they call Atlas, and it’s basically Ajax integrated with ASP.NET. If that’s your platform of choice, then you’ll likely find a lot of value in the book Programming Atlas by Christian Wenz.

Contents: Atlas, Ajax, and ASP.NET; JavaScript; Ajax; Controls; Data Binding and Validation; Components and Behaviors; Animations; Client Script Library; Using Server Data; Web Services; Extending Controls; Virtual Earth; Web Parts and Gadgets; Atlas Control Toolkit; Using Atlas with Other Server Technologies; Other Ajax Tools; XMLHttpRequest Reference; DOM Reference; Atlas Reference; ScriptManager and UpdatePanel Declarative Reference; Index

From the perspective of someone who is familiar with ASP.NET and wants to start incorporating Ajax-style coding, this book works pretty well. Wenz goes into the different controls provided by Microsoft, and shows how they can be used to save you a lot of time over manual coding. Since Atlas is not yet “gold”, he had to work through a lot of this information on his own. The writing shows a pretty deep understanding of what’s going on and how to make it work to your advantage. The chapters on JavaScript and Ajax are pretty high-level, so I don’t know that I’d recommend this book for someone who isn’t already knowledgeable in JavaScript. I think there’s a certain level of expertise that needs to be assumed here. I also don’t quite see the value of the Using Atlas with Other Server Technologies chapter. A cursory glance at the introductory section makes it sound as if Atlas can be used anywhere as opposed to being tied to Microsoft. While that’s true from the standpoint of using/calling other data sources, you appear to lose functionality pretty rapidly if you’re not running IIS and ASP.NET. If non-Microsoft platforms are your primary target, I don’t think Atlas (or this book) would do much to help you out.

So… If you’re already using Visual Studio tools and .NET to program your applications, definitely use Atlas to let Microsoft do the heavy lifting for you. This particular book can help you consolidate all the information that’s been written to date on the technology, and allow you to get moving more quickly than you would if you decided to dig it all out via the Web…
Rating: 4 / 5

I found this book to be OK as an introduction, but not very deep on the UpdatePanel, which is one of the core components for Microsoft’s AJAX solution. Also, the book is based on the earlier Atlas CTPs, and the newer [...] Betas have drastically changed some things. Worthwhile, but I’m not finding it a reference that I have by my side all the time. Probably should be updated when GA comes out.
Rating: 3 / 5

Programming Atlas, by Christian Wenz, is a good treatment of the upcoming ASP.NET Ajax release. Microsoft decided to change the name of the product from Atlas to ASP.NET 2.0 Ajax after more than two years in development. Even though the name may be out of date, the material in this book is not.

Wenz does a great job explaning how Ajax works and the role of JavaScript in it. He quickly covers basic JavaScript syntax and moves quickly into client side programming using Atlas. His methods of presenting segmented and documented code examples followed by the complete example is very reinforcing.

The topics covered are broad, including:

Client Side Ajax

Server Side Programming for Ajax

Atlas Controls

Databinding with Atlas

Creating custom components

XML-Script

Ajax.NET

I was confused when I saw the chapter on Ajax.NET. I wouldn’t expect to see a chapter on Castle if I bought a book on Spring.NET, or IBatis.NET in a book on NHibernate. It seems the space could have been used for a deeper treatment of other topics.

The book is well written, with very few errors. I would recommend this for anyone who has some development skill, works in .NET 2.0, and does web-client development.

Rating: 4 / 5