Building Facebook Application for Dummies
Product Details :
- Paperback: 342 pages
- Publisher: For Dummies; Pap/Pas edition (June 10, 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0470277955
- ISBN-13: 978-0470277959
Ebook Review :
I've been trying to learn about Facebook both from a user's perspective and that of a developer. Why? Because any service with 200 million users is something I will run into in my work - and it looks like fun.
I've read several books on Facebook application development and this is the best I've seen so far. (I still have several to go, so my opinion may change.)
Author Richard Wagner takes a matter of fact approach and begins with the essentials, something other books oddly fail to do. One immediate standout feature is Wagner's diagramming and explaining Facebook's application architecture. Several other books omit this entirely or give it short shrift. Wagner diagrams it plainly and clearly and it helps.
Wagner deliberately restricts the scope of his book, again in contrast to other authors who try to include something on every language usable with Facebook. I prefer Wagner's "small steps" first approach. It is much easier to deal with and offers more depth, I think.
He starts off with building a very simple Facebook application and then moves into specific discussions of the Facebook API, FBTML, FQL and FJS. Don't recognize these terms? Don't worry: Wagner explains them thoroughly in easily understandable language with plenty of examples and illustrations.
There's as lot more and all of it is good.
But there is a drawback: Facebook is in a constant state of development and things change, sometimes massively. That happened recently and has many people upset for a variety of reasons.
In any event, some of the thins in this book are obsolete. That doesn't detract from its overall usefulness, though.
This is an excellent book for anyone who wants to understand the Facebook application development process.
I've read several books on Facebook application development and this is the best I've seen so far. (I still have several to go, so my opinion may change.)
Author Richard Wagner takes a matter of fact approach and begins with the essentials, something other books oddly fail to do. One immediate standout feature is Wagner's diagramming and explaining Facebook's application architecture. Several other books omit this entirely or give it short shrift. Wagner diagrams it plainly and clearly and it helps.
Wagner deliberately restricts the scope of his book, again in contrast to other authors who try to include something on every language usable with Facebook. I prefer Wagner's "small steps" first approach. It is much easier to deal with and offers more depth, I think.
He starts off with building a very simple Facebook application and then moves into specific discussions of the Facebook API, FBTML, FQL and FJS. Don't recognize these terms? Don't worry: Wagner explains them thoroughly in easily understandable language with plenty of examples and illustrations.
There's as lot more and all of it is good.
But there is a drawback: Facebook is in a constant state of development and things change, sometimes massively. That happened recently and has many people upset for a variety of reasons.
In any event, some of the thins in this book are obsolete. That doesn't detract from its overall usefulness, though.
This is an excellent book for anyone who wants to understand the Facebook application development process.
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