What do you think?
Rate this book
Google Maps JavaScript API Cookbook
Google Maps API Cookbook follows a fast-paced, high-level, structured cookbook approach, with minimal theory and an abundance of practical, real-world examples explained in a thorough yet concise manner to help you learn quickly and efficiently.Google Maps API Cookbook is for developers who wish to learn how to do anything from adding a simple embedded map to a website to developing complex GIS applications with the Google Maps JavaScript API. It is targeted at JavaScript developers who know how to get by but who are also seeking the immediacy of recipe-based advice.
316 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2013
4 people are currently reading
9 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 12, 2014
Disclosure: I was asked by the publisher to review this book.
The book
“Google Maps JavaScript API Cookbook” is relatively a short book, it’s full of, like the name of the book suggests, recipes to work with the Google Maps API.
Both authors, Alper Dincer and Balkan Uraz share a MS degree in Geographical Sciences and have over 10 years of experience working on Geographic Information Systems. So it’s safe to say they know their GIS. That being said, this is a programming cookbook, so the quality of the recipes is not assured.
The bad
Let’s first start with the bad, or the not-so-good to be honest.
Like I said before, the book’s authors are experts when it comes to Geographical Systems, and have worked in several Geo related projects over the last 10 years, but it shows that they are not experienced programmers.
The recipes do their work, don’t get me wrong, but their code is not the best, they just don’t follow regular best practices.
The entire book could’ve been thought out to end up developing a small framework to work with Google Maps API. Instead, the recepies’ code are only related to that recepie’s task instead. Leaving the reader with a bunch of individual examples and a lot of repeated code.
The other programming related issue I had with this book, was that the authors kept talking about creating classes. If you’ve used JavaScript for a while, you’d know that that’s not entirely right, actually, it’s pretty misleading to the less versed developer. I know this isn’t a JavaScript-heavy book or anything like that, but they could’ve at least bothered to get the names right.
The good
Yeap, that’s right, that’s about all that really “bothered” me from the book. To be honest, this book is a really useful reference manual.
It’s quite easy to read, each example is easily understood and very well explained. You’ll probably find yourself coming back to it, just to quickly check how something was done.
Call me skeptic, but I had my doubts about the cookbook format of it. I was afraid that the lack of technical depth about the Google Maps API would hurt and hinder my learning. On the contrary, this gave me a super quick, yet complete, overview of what I could possibly accomplish with this powerful API.
I had already done some easy and mid-level stuff with the API but by the end of the book, I had learned how to fully customize the map, load external data and use the services provided by the API.
Would I recommend it?
Yes I would, if you’re just starting, get the book and learn all you can eventually accomplish with it. If you’ve already worked with the API, get it anyways, you’ll end up learning a few tricks on the way.
The book
“Google Maps JavaScript API Cookbook” is relatively a short book, it’s full of, like the name of the book suggests, recipes to work with the Google Maps API.
Both authors, Alper Dincer and Balkan Uraz share a MS degree in Geographical Sciences and have over 10 years of experience working on Geographic Information Systems. So it’s safe to say they know their GIS. That being said, this is a programming cookbook, so the quality of the recipes is not assured.
The bad
Let’s first start with the bad, or the not-so-good to be honest.
Like I said before, the book’s authors are experts when it comes to Geographical Systems, and have worked in several Geo related projects over the last 10 years, but it shows that they are not experienced programmers.
The recipes do their work, don’t get me wrong, but their code is not the best, they just don’t follow regular best practices.
The entire book could’ve been thought out to end up developing a small framework to work with Google Maps API. Instead, the recepies’ code are only related to that recepie’s task instead. Leaving the reader with a bunch of individual examples and a lot of repeated code.
The other programming related issue I had with this book, was that the authors kept talking about creating classes. If you’ve used JavaScript for a while, you’d know that that’s not entirely right, actually, it’s pretty misleading to the less versed developer. I know this isn’t a JavaScript-heavy book or anything like that, but they could’ve at least bothered to get the names right.
The good
Yeap, that’s right, that’s about all that really “bothered” me from the book. To be honest, this book is a really useful reference manual.
It’s quite easy to read, each example is easily understood and very well explained. You’ll probably find yourself coming back to it, just to quickly check how something was done.
Call me skeptic, but I had my doubts about the cookbook format of it. I was afraid that the lack of technical depth about the Google Maps API would hurt and hinder my learning. On the contrary, this gave me a super quick, yet complete, overview of what I could possibly accomplish with this powerful API.
I had already done some easy and mid-level stuff with the API but by the end of the book, I had learned how to fully customize the map, load external data and use the services provided by the API.
Would I recommend it?
Yes I would, if you’re just starting, get the book and learn all you can eventually accomplish with it. If you’ve already worked with the API, get it anyways, you’ll end up learning a few tricks on the way.
February 3, 2014
For a recent website project I was working on, I needed to implement maps. With Google Maps as my first choice, I began to search for some specific examples. While Google has a nice API reference, the examples they provide are not that obvious. Than I came across this book that provided the information I needed.
The beginning of this book can seem a bit overloaded: the table of contents is extensive and the first examples are overly explained. However, once you get to situation that is not-so-often described, you will be thankful for the detailed overview. For example, I enjoyed reading about how to add custom tiles as layers; how to work with GeoJSON; add custom controls; and combine maps with other Google Services. There are topics in addition to these other developers can find useful as this book is loaded with lots of recipes and examples. The only thing missing was a more extensive explanation on how to debug problems, but there are a lots of books out there on this particular topic.
Although the highly technicians authors have a lot of experience in mapping and geodesic fields, the book is an easy and pleasant read. Every example has one or more screenshots of what readers can expect; extensive explanations of what should be done; and the *How it works* section, which I enjoy the most. The book is useable for both newbies and more professional developers with its short explanations on HTML and Java Script for the former and some heavy mapping recipes for the latter.
I definitely enjoyed reading the book and would recommend it for others.
The beginning of this book can seem a bit overloaded: the table of contents is extensive and the first examples are overly explained. However, once you get to situation that is not-so-often described, you will be thankful for the detailed overview. For example, I enjoyed reading about how to add custom tiles as layers; how to work with GeoJSON; add custom controls; and combine maps with other Google Services. There are topics in addition to these other developers can find useful as this book is loaded with lots of recipes and examples. The only thing missing was a more extensive explanation on how to debug problems, but there are a lots of books out there on this particular topic.
Although the highly technicians authors have a lot of experience in mapping and geodesic fields, the book is an easy and pleasant read. Every example has one or more screenshots of what readers can expect; extensive explanations of what should be done; and the *How it works* section, which I enjoy the most. The book is useable for both newbies and more professional developers with its short explanations on HTML and Java Script for the former and some heavy mapping recipes for the latter.
I definitely enjoyed reading the book and would recommend it for others.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews