I use javascript on a daily basis at work, and MooTools is my framework of choice. It’s easy to use, powerful, and has made my life exceedingly easier. MooTools did much of the heavy lifting in my Google Summer of Code project; I would have spent many more sleepless days without it.
The only downside (if this can even be counted against it) to MooTools was a lack of a great comprehensive, introductory resource. Now, the examples and API documentation are more than superb, and I was easily able to teach myself all I needed to know to use it efficiently; but having a detailed guide or book would have made it easier for me to learn what I needed to know, rather than having to piece together information from the docs. I simply prefer a book or extensive ‘tutorial’ by an expert in the area that I want to get into – I love learning things and teaching myself things, but I find I learn much quicker when a roadmap has been set up for beginners of a subject. The book Learning Python (by Mark Lutz) was one of the best resources I’ve ever learned from, and having a book that walked me through MooTools while I was first getting into it is something that would have been invaluable for me.
To my knowledge, there were no books aimed at beginners to MooTools specifically when I was learning. So, I was pleased to learn that there now exists such a book – MooTools 1.2 Beginner’s Guide – my only gripe so far is that it wasn’t written sooner.
A great guy from Pact Publishing sent me a complimentary (i.e. free) copy of the book MooTools 1.2 Beginner’s Guide .
I admit I haven’t heard about Pact publishing, but that’s probably due to that fact that I’m in the US and it’s a company based in the UK. They seem like a real stand up company, and the fact that they proactively get input from people in the tech field about the books they publish has earned them a ton of respect in my mind – it’s clear they care about the audience they are providing information to, this is definitely a company that knows what it’s doing.
I look forward to reading it and I’ll be posting a thorough review of it when I’m through.
