Google Maps JavaScript API Cookbook

I love this kind of IT book. Since it is not only explain the application features by example but also explain each coding in the example.

I have the Kindle Version of this book. It has easy to understand examples and clear explanations. I loved it!

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 badLet’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 goodYeap, 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.

(Full disclosure: I was asked to review the e-book edition of this book by Packt)This book follows the familiar Packt Cookbook pattern of dividing each recipe into sub-sections ofIntroduction, Getting Ready, How to do it, How it works, There's more, and See also. This pattern has worked wellin the past, and works especially well here. The recipe's concept is introduced, the code is provided, it is thenexplained before finishing with potential expansions, caveats, and further reading. In common with mostPackt Cookbooks, the first chapters are relatively simple and are used as a basis for later chapters and concepts.The chapters are:Google Maps JavaScript API BasicsAdding Raster LayersAdding Vector LayersWorking with ControlsUnderstanding Google Maps JavaScript API EventsGoogle Maps JavaScript LibrariesWorking with ServicesMastering the Google Maps JavaScript API through Advanced RecipesNote that many of these recipes do not rely on built-in API functionality. For example, a simple WKT parser is introduced in order to plot WKT data.There are some quibbles with small parts of the text. Some of these are pretty trivial. For example, no mention ismade that Google Maps does not support all of the KML standard. This is a common assumption and is wrong:Google Earth is the only application that supports all of the KML standard. As I say this is fairly trivial.A more significant omission concerns map projections. Google uses a Mercator projection based on a sphericalEarth model. No mention is made of the spherical Earth model although it might pose problems when plottingGPS-derived data (which is typically WGS84). The area-distorting properties of the Mercator projection are mentioned,but no mention is made of why this is bad for many map applications. Basically the distortions make the Mercatorprojection unsuitable for regional and global geo-statistical maps (including the global earthquake example givenin the book). Such applications should use an equal area projection such as the Mollweide or Cylindrical Equal Areaprojections. The online mapping revolution of the past decade has made it very easy to make high quality mapswith services such as Google Maps or Bing Maps. Unfortunately it also makes it easier to make accidental mistakesof this kind.Some reviews have noted that the bulk of the information in this book can be found in the official documentation.To an extent this is true, however the documentation tends to only have a limited set of working examples and the rest is in the form of reference material. This book provides a good set of working examples that cover a wider range of functionality,including a number of advanced topics and customizations. As such, a beginner or intermediate user of theGoogle Maps JavaScript API will find this book to be a useful companion to the official referencedocumentation.