The era of professional JavaScript development has arrived! Gone are the days when writing all the client–side code for your applications by hand yourself was the norm. Gone are the days when scrounging around the Internet to find a snippet of code to do something you need could lead to either decent code or utter garbage that you’d surely regret using later.

No, writing high–quality JavaScript these days is a whole lot easier with the advent of top–notch libraries that save you time and effort, and one that stands out from most others is Dojo.

Dojo is a library like few others: written by some of the best JavaScript coders around today, providing nearly everything you’ll need to write modern Rich Internet Applications, all in one place. From Ajax to widgets, to client–side persistence and language extensions, and many points in between, Dojo has it all.

In Practical Dojo Projects, you’ll learn all about what Dojo has to offer. You’ll see it in action in the form of five fully functional applications, which include

A contact manager for storing info for all the important people in your life

A code cabinet: a place to store, index, and get code snippets from

A stock tracker to keep track of your stock portfolio

A message forum for open discussions on topics you define

Even a fun little game!

By the time you’ve finished reading, you’ll have a firm grasp on what Dojo is all about, and you’ll have the preparation you need to begin to use it yourself in your own projects. See you inside!

Frank W. Zammetti is a web architect specialist for a leading worldwide financial company by day, and a PocketPC and open-source developer by night. He is the founder and chief software architect of Omnytex Technologies, a PocketPC development house.

He has over 12 years of “professional” experience in the IT field, and over 12 more of “amateur” experience. He began his nearly life-long love of computers at age 7 when he became one of four students chosen to take part in the school district’s pilot computer program. A year later, he was the only participant left! The first computer Frank owned was a Timex Sinclair 1000 in 1982, on which he wrote a program to look up movie times for all of Long Island (and without the 16k expansion module!). After that, he moved on to a Commodore 64 and spent about 4 years doing nothing but assembly programming (games mostly). He finally got his first IBM-compatible PC in 1987, and began learning the finer points of programming (as they existed at that time!).

Frank has primarily developed web-based applications for about 8 years. Before that, he developed Windows-based client/server applications in a variety of languages. Frank holds numerous certifications including SCJP, MCSD, CNA, i-Net+, A+, CIW, MCP, and numerous BrainBench certifications. He is a contributor to a number of open source projects, including DataVision, Struts, PocketFrog, and Jakarta Commons. In addition, Frank has started two projects: Java Web Parts and The Struts Web Services Enablement Project. He also was one of the founding members of a project that created the first fully functioning Commodore 64 emulator for PocketPC devices (PocketHobbit).

Frank has authored various articles on topics that range from integrating DataVision into web apps, to using Ajax in Struts-based applications. He is currently working on a new application framework specifically geared to creating next-generation web applications.