Comments on: Facebook API Developers Guide

By: Hwan-joon Choi

Hwan-joon Choi — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 08:51:22 +0000

The book does go over a lot of the basic elements of the API, but I felt it didn’t offer me much more than what I could already learn from the Facebook Developers wiki or resource pages. Keep in mind that it’s only 100 pages – there is a chapter on building a sample Facebook app, though I wish it had offered more “cookbook” style recipes. The author gives you what he promises, which is an API guide, but I was hoping for more concrete examples. I would not recommend this book for more advanced developers.

One last thing I wanted to mention is that it doesn’t seem to include some of the newer features of Facebook, such as Pages.
Rating: 3 / 5

By: Seth A. Cardoza

Seth A. Cardoza — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 08:46:21 +0000

This book only covers the very basics. I would only recommend it to someone thinking about Facebook API development. If you’ve already jumped into it, this book won’t take you very far.
Rating: 3 / 5

By: Adam Pasztory

Adam Pasztory — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 05:55:29 +0000

As far as I know, this was the first book released about Facebook development. So it comes as no surprise that it feels like it was written in a weekend. It’s quite an accomplishment to make a book that’s only 100 pages long feel padded, yet somehow the author manages to achieve this. For example, the bit of code that shows you how to set your API Key variable in the config.php file is repeated at least 3 times! The sample application that occupies the rear third of the book is extremely disappointing because it is just a plain old PHP app. It does not take advantage of the Facebook API.

I’m giving this book 2 stars in part because there is a dearth of Facebook development books. And there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the information provided here, it’s just limited. As a primer it will be enough to get you started, but you’ll be done with the book in a couple hours and hungering for more.
Rating: 2 / 5