The Book of JavaScript: A Practical Guide to Interactive Web Pages
Book Details
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Spotlight Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 4.26Customer Rating: 5
Summary: This is one great book to have by your side.
Comment: I have been trying to learn JavaScript for over 6 months now and the while I understand the basics the more advanced features are still a mystery to me. That was until I found the Book Of JavaScript.
Broken down to the beginner level and starting with a very basic introduction to JavaScript I found that I was able to understand the concepts as well as retain them. After the intro you move to functions such as the alert prompt. The author does a good job of making sure you understand before moving on.
You'll also cover topics like rollovers, manipulating windows and then begin to write your own functions. Also covered in the book is forms, arrays and loops as well as setting up timing events, frames, I mage maps, cookies and DHTML.
One thing I really liked about this book was the author's breakdown of how to fix broken code. After spending time working with the book I can now see why it sold over 20,000 in the first two months.
The cd-rom include has a demo of Dreamweaver 3.0, Adobe Go Live 4.0 and an assortment of other software. Overall this book is by far one of the best I have worked.
Customer Rating: 5
Summary: This book will teach you JavaScript
Comment: This book goes well beyond the typical "how-to" JavaScript book. After spending the first few pages explaining the history and basics of the language, David Thau mixes up the tutorials with real life JavaScript examples from sites like Sun, HotMail, and Pets.com. He carefully walks through all the code and explains everything. Thau is a great writer. I remember him from his days at WebMonkey.com and his JavaScript tutorials from that site taught me and I'm sure many others how to script. As he did with the online tutorials, this book does a thorough job covering all the basics like variables, strings, arrays, functions, etc. On the downside, there is nothing here for the advanced JavaScripter (check out O'Reilly's JavaScript Cookbook for that), but if you are a beginner or even an intermediate JavaScripter, this book is an excellent choice, and does a much better job teaching JavaScript than other entry level books, like "Teach Yourself JavaScript 1.3 in 24 Hours" or "JavaScript for Dummies."
Customer Rating: 3
Summary: Solid material, if somewhat dated...
Comment: Target Audience
Beginning JavaScript coders.
Contents
This is a conversational tutorial on JavaScript coding designed for people who have not used the language much (or at all).
The book is divided into the following chapters:
Welcome To JavaScript!; Using Variables and Built-in Functions to Update Your Web Pages Automatically; Give The Browsers What They Want; Rollovers: Everyone's Favorite JavaScript Trick; Opening and Manipulating Windows; Getting Functional: Writing Your Own JavaScript Functions; Giving and Taking Information With Forms; Keeping Track of Information with Arrays and Loops; Timing Events; Frames and Image Maps; Validating Forms, Massaging Strings, and Working with CGI; Cookies; Dynamic HTML; How to Fix Broken Code; Beyond the Browser: Plug-ins, ActiveX, Making Music, and Java; Reference to JavaScript Objects and Functions; Answers to Assignments
Review
There are numerous books on the market that deal with learning JavaScript. There is everything from simplistic guides to the person building their first web page, to in-depth guide for the professional web developers, to detailed reference guides that document every feature. On that scale of coverage, this book falls somewhere on the lower end of the scale. That's not a bad thing... It's just good to know what the target audience is.
The tone of the author's writing is conversational and a little quirky. He uses a number of examples in each chapter to illustrate the subject matter, and they illustrate the points well. Each example is dissected so that the reader can follow along and understand what each line is doing. By the time you are finished, you should have a solid understanding of the basics of JavaScript. At that point, you should be ready to pick up a more detailed book and start learning the intricacies of the language.
The only bad thing about the book at this point in time is the age of the book. He assumes that the reader is working with either Netscape 3.0 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0. On one hand, most of the stuff you see here should be supported now in any browser. On the other hand, there's something to be said for learning the latest information on more up-to-date platforms. The age also shows up when you examine some of their web site samples. Obviously, the sites have been updated since the book was written, so you can't very well follow along any more.
Conclusion
A solid, if somewhat dated, tutorial treatment of basic JavaScript coding. Easy to read, and very good explanations of code examples.