JavaScript for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide, Fifth Edition
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Spotlight Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 3.35Customer Rating: 5
Summary: A great introduction to the JavaScript neophyte
Comment: The VIsual Quickstart Guide series masterfully achieves what is implied by it's name... it gets you started fast and there are lots of visual references (screenshots and code samples) throughout.
If you're already savvy in JavaScript, the text might be a little too elementary, but it's doubtful that a master at JavaScript would be interested in a book w/ this title to begin with.
Just enough info to accomplish the most commonly desired scripts (alert boxes, image roll-overs, clocks, etc.) without overloading the beginner with too many overwhelming projects that are beyond the scope of an intro to the scripting language.
The book is written equally to Macintosh users as well as Windows users and there are screenshots of JavaScript functions from each platform. It's rare that a mainstream book, especially a relatively inexpensive one, covers both platforms. The book also covers both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator/Communicator so that the beginner realizes the limitations that the 2 top platforms and 2 top browsers bring into play. This helps beginners from designing scripts that are only viewable with the same configuration that he/she has, unknowingly excluding other viewers.
Customer Rating: 3
Summary: SCRIPTS DON'T WORK
Comment: It seems to me that most of these scripts don't work. I'm in IT and also a web site administrator, and I still can't get them to work as they are written. I give the authors a 3 for being motivated enough to write the book, though. It seems that they have good intentions.
Customer Rating: 5
Summary: Great introduction
Comment: I maintain content for a corporate extranet. I have often implemented JavaScript scripts and made some modifications. However, I had never really understood how the scripts worked. I got this book and "Beginning JavaScript" by Paul Wilton, so I could learn the nuts and bolts. After reading this I started to actually understand the scripts I was implementing. I recommend that beginners start by reading the Visual Quickstart (VQ) book and then move onto something more indepth like Wilton's book. VQ is an excellent concise introduction to the basics of JavaScript. It gives a quick explanation of things such as event handlers, methods, properties, functions and loops. You should be able to finish this book in a couple of weeks and have a solid understanding of the basics of JavaScript. However, you will then need something more indepth to truly learn to program complex JavaScripts.