While this book necessarily attempts to provide the same kind of depth and breadth of Dojo itself, there were a few topics that just couldn't quite be squeezed into this edition:
- Web development 101
While this book provides in depth coverage of Dojo, it doesn't provide a complete web development tutorial that formally introduces elementary constructs such as HTML, JavaScript, and CSS from scratch.
- Redundant API documentation
The vast majority[6] of Dojo's API is definitively explained in this book and is generally captured into tables that are easy to reference. Because there's so much breadth to Dojo, it seemed especially helpful to make sure you get exposed to as much of it as possible so that you'll know what's available when the need arises. Dojo is a fluid project, however, so you'll always want to double-check the online documentation at http://api.dojotoolkit.org for the most comprehensive authority. Unlike programming languages and more rigid application frameworks, Dojo is a fluid project with a thriving community, so it is not unlikely that the API may be enhanced for your benefit as new versions are released. But do know that the project is committed to not breaking the 1.x API until at least version 2.0, so in general, any API covered in this book will be perfectly valid for quite some time. Even then, the parts of the API that do change will be well documented ahead of time.
- Nonbrowser host environments
This book also doesn't elaborate or provide examples on how you can use Dojo outside of the typical browser environment (such as in a Rhino or Adobe AIR environment) or include coverage on how you can use Dojo in combination with other client-side frameworks such as DWR, YUI!, or Domino.
[6] From a conservative estimate, over 95% of the API for Base, Core, Dijit, and Util is covered in this book.
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