Recently, I stumbled across a very unexpected book at a trek to Barnes and Noble: Prototype and Scriptaculous in Action. Being a long time Prototype user and reader of Justin Palmer I was surprised there wasn’t more press on this one. Not to be outdone though, the Pragmatic Programmers series announced the new book Prototype and script.aculo.us – You never knew JavaScript could do this! beta book to be available. If you’re not familiar with beta books, the idea is basically that you can download the unfinished pdf right now, as well as updates along the way before eventually getting the pdf of the final version. For a little more you can have the finished book shipped to you as well. I did this for an earlier book by the Pragmatic Programmers and was impressed with how it worked, and the lack of problems I ran into.

If you search Amazon for Javascript books, you’re going to have a hard time getting started. There are a few that stand out that I’ve been wanting to read though including Pro JavaScript Techniques by John Resig (the creator of jQuery), ppk on JavaScript, 1/e by the guy who runs Quirksmode.org and the bestselling Ajax in Action. The problem with learning “Ajax” most people run into though is that it’s so abstracted by your Javascript framework of choice that very little of what you script is actual Ajax. For that reason these three and the Prototype ones above (which although I haven’t read cover to cover, I’ve probably skimmed through half of while at the bookstore) look like great ones for someone looking to further their JS skills.

If you’re interested in checking out ColdBox, Luis released version 2.0 earlier today. For a framework that doesn’t get too much press it’s amazingly mature, with more documentation than any other I’ve come across (aside from those techspedition Fusebox books that have outdated practices). The sample applications that come with the framework offer even more support with examples of how to create full applications using ColdBox including integration with Transfer and Coldspring. Read the release post for a full list of the features in 2.0.

As much as I love ColdFusion, Python On Planes looks like a great new solution. It brands itself as:

Python on Planes is an open-source web framework that’s optimized for python happiness and snakeable productivity. It lets you write beautiful code by favoring snake oil over gems.

It sounds like it could be wildly successful. Get in now and be one of the early adopters!

Planes is the most well thought-out snake oil framework I’ve ever sniffed.
And that’s in a decade of doing tongue forking for a living. I’ve built my
own snakes, helped develop the Snakes API, and have created more than
a few snakepits from scratch. Nobody has done it like this before. – Vladimir Putin