Book Review: jQuery Mobile Web Development Essentials - Second Edition

Summary

At long last, I have finally read through jQuery Mobile Web Development Essentials - Second Edition. The book covers in detail all of the aspects of the jQuery Mobile framework, from pages to headers, lists to forms.

The Good

Authors Raymond Camden and Andy Matthews are eloquent and entertaining in their approach to the subject matter. They delve deeply enough into the framework's intricacies to whet the appetite of any reader to seek out more detail. In the process, developers utilizing the framework are thereby enabled to quickly build robust and powerful mobile sites.

Not So Good

My primary issue with this book stems from the purpose of jQuery Mobile itself, more so than anything in the text itself. Although jQuery Mobile does make the process of building a site for mobile devices far more streamlined, it clouds the fact that the building sites the right way often (and increasingly leaning towards always) requires more flexible methods (such as Responsive Web Design, a.k.a. RWD).

Overall Impressions

For those interested in learning jQuery Mobile, this is an excellent book. Numerous and varied aspects of the framework are examined and explained, accompanied by examples throughout. However, when seeking more general approaches to development that spans devices, the jQuery Mobile library itself pigeonholes developers, potentially adding time, energy and weight to their efforts.

Note: Packt Publishing has not compensated me monetarily for writing this review. However, I have received a copy of the text for my time, and to allow me to read the title in order to review it.

Labels: Book Review, CSS, Framework, JavaScript, jQuery, Mobile, Responsive, Web

posted by Jake Kronika, Owner, Gridline Design at 11:54 PM