The Google Maps API remains one of the showcase examples of Web 2.0 development paradigm. 'Beginning Google Maps Applications with Rails and Ajax: From Novice to Professionals' is the first book to comprehensively introduce the service from a developer perspective, showing you how you can integrate mapping features into your Rails-drive web applications. Proceeding far beyond simplistic map display, you'll learn how to draw from a variety of data sources such as the US Census Bureau's TIGER/Line data and Google's own geocoding features to build comprehensive geocoding services for mapping many locations around the world. The book also steers you through various examples that show how to encourage user interaction such as through pinpointing map locations, adding comments, and building community-driven maps.
