Cookies

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Summary: Cookies presents users and developers with key cookie info.
Review: Cookies gives users and developers a guide to the many mysteries of a simple but controversial tool, from how to create and use cookies appropriately to how to block and destroy them.

Introduced in Netscape Navigator version 1.1, cookies are small pieces of text that remain on the user's machine until they expire or are deleted. Cookies get passed back and forth with every web transaction (though only to the domain that originally set the cookie), allowing developers to track users over multiple page hits or even over years.

Cookies have earned a bad name for privacy invasion, given their ability to track users from visit to visit and (under very particular circumstances) from site to site. Most of this bad name is unwarranted, but Cookies gives users the information they need to turn off and destroy cookies where they feel it appropriate.

Cookies also gives developers examples of sites that maintain state over multiple visits, using JavaScript and VBScript in the browser, and Perl, Netscape Server-Side Java Script, Microsoft Active Server Pages, and Java servlets on the server. It also provides coverage of Microsoft Site Server and its tools for 'personalizing' sites and following usage patterns, as well as the latest update to the cookie standard.

Rating:
Summary: I Hate to Ruin the Recipe
Review: I worship at the altar of convenience. Instead of the cookie recipe at the end of the book, I would have preferred a disk with all the code samples of the book in it (How about a Web site?) What a thought! Otherwise, the book is a good read.

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Summary: *Includes one actual cookie recipe! *
Review: Known as a powerful Internet tool, and as a device for strangers to track Web surfers' paths and behavior, everyone has heard of cookies. Now, McGraw-Hill releases COOKIES by Simon St. Laurent, the first comprehensive guide to cookies, their power, and how they fit into Web toolkits and how they work with other tools.

Cookies were initially introduced in 1994 as part of Netscape 1.1 as a way for developers to store tiny amounts of information on client computers. Cookies stay on the user's machine until removed by expiration, explicit request of the user, or just by being the oldest cookie around when the limit of (approximately) 100 cookies for the machine or 20 for the domain is reached. Web development expert Simon St. Laurent thoroughly examines cookies, and shares his knowledge and experience, including:

· Details to help create cookies with maximum functionality, including client-side cookie scripting and server-side cookie applications
· Sample cookie files and code
· Advice on blending cookies and Java
· Better ways to track site usage
· Simulated cookies for browsers that can't handle them
· Alternative routes when users hostile to cookies have turned them off
· Site architecture considerations
· The latest improvements to the cookie standard and new specifications from Microsoft and Netscape/Verisign, including the Open Profiling Standard

COOKIES includes complete coverage of the Internet Engineering Task Force's controversial RFC 2109, which contains specifications for cookie contents, and rules covering the ways servers and browsers handle cookies. Additionally, COOKIES explains how cookies have spread from CGI programming to JavaScripting, and are an important part of the toolbox for Microsoft Active Server Pages, Java Servlets, and Netscape LiveWire development.

This book is a must-read for Web developers, programmers, and anyone that is concerned about security on the Web.

Simon St. Laurent (Greensboro, North Carolina) is an experienced Web developer who has been involved with hypertext since 1989 and the World Wide Web since 1994. He has worked for a number of multimedia and Web design firms on projects for clients from start-up small businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Currently he is on the staff of Systems Integration and Support Services, Inc.

Rating:
Summary: Just read the spec
Review: The cookie spec is only a few pages long...for a reason.Cookies just aren't that complicated. You simply don't need a book ofthis length to figure out how to use them. A short web-based tutorial is more than enough.

Rating:
Summary: Just read the spec
Review: This book is very well written with source code included. The only thing lacking is an electronic source. I spent many hours combined debugging my code since there is no media with the book. It is fantastic however. A definite must for developing complex cookie based solutions.

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Summary: It's great that there's at least one book on the subject!
Review: This book is very well written with source code included. The only thing lacking is an electronic source. I spent many hours combined debugging my code since there is no media with the book. It is fantastic however. A definite must for developing complex cookie based solutions.

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Summary: This book saved the day.
Review: This is a great book! My only problem is it went from the basics to advanced, totaly skipping the imtermediate levels of cookies. This book filled in all the gaps in the JavaScript Bible and THEN some! I recommend it to any one that developes web sites!

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Summary: THE BOOK on cookies
Review: Well if you want to be able to make a shopping cart, make a mission statement compiler or just about anything else with cookies THIS IS THE BOOK. Even if you don't have mush programming experience this book would be good for you. This is definitely a good book for all web developers.

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Summary: Dispelling cookie myths
Review: While the beginning of the book does a decent job of dispelling some cookie myths, it is, understandably, a little out of date already.

I did have a couple of objections to the book. It should have had a companion CD with the codes or a web site to go to.

Also, the proliferation of typographical errors (half a dozen or so in just the first 60 pages) is unacceptable for any book let alone something of this nature (McGraw-Hill...are you listening???). That's another reason why a companion CD is necessary. I would not spend time on code I don't trust. I'd never know if it was my typing ability....or the code that was wrong.

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Summary: What the hell is a cookie, anyway? Well, now you know.
Review: With the growing interest in privacy and consumer sentiment about the tracking of their browsing behavior, understanding cookies and their role in an internet browsing session has a broad audience. St Laurent serves this audience well with an engaging book written in an accessible style. He has an interesting knack for finding the right balance of technical depth and contextual breadth for his topic. Although the book is focused on cookies and the need for managing state in the potentially stateless world of the web, it also represents a good primer on browsers, web servers, and related matters. He uses a number of simple scripting exercises that almost anyone can do. The examples really help the reader understand by doing rather than just reading. I have recommended this book to a number of "technically challenged" colleagues who have consistently given me the feedback that they not only gained a good perspective on what cookies are used for, but walked away with a better overall understanding of how the web works. The only reason I can't give this book 5 stars is that it is two years old, and so much has happened since it was published, that it already needs a second edition! Nonetheless, it is a great resource for a wide audience.