The Book of JavaScript (2nd edition) by “thau!” (Dave Thau, according to the book’s companion website) is a new and comprehensive introduction to the JavaScript language presented in an entertaining, practical format. I was provided a review copy by the publisher, No Starch Press. I have significant practical experience with JavaScript, so I do not consider myself in the target audience for this book; however, I still found much of it useful so it will remain as a valuable reference on my bookshelf.Individual chapters address common JavaScript concepts and constructs in a practical, easy-to-approach manner. The book assumes no previous programming experience (but it does assume the reader is quite familiar with web page construction in general). From an overview of JavaScript, its abilities and
limitations, to a gentle introduction to programming language constructs like variables and functions, onward to windows, forms, events, cookies, and then even delving deep into DHTML, CSS, XML, and Ajax, this book attempts to cover enough of the current usage of the language to get a casual or part-time programmer up to speed.
Each chapter includes numerous examples, and many of the longer, more difficult ones have a “Line-by-Line Analysis” section in which the author dissects the example with straightforward descriptions. The information builds through the chapter to the end, at which point the author summarizes what he’s presented, and then (in a pleasant surprise compared to other books I’ve read recently) offers up a “homework assignment” to cement and assimilate the newly-acquired skill. Often the assignments expand on work presented in the chapter, so the reader isn’t left alone to write “code from scratch”, which is often daunting to the new programmer. Numerous cross-references to live websites (such as Greasemonkey and Flickr) illustrate how JavaScript techniques bring real websites to life.
After all the exploration, the reader is walked through the development of a significant Ajax application, a shared “to-do” list webpage. Anyone who diligently follows to this point would be a capable JavaScript programmer.
To learn more:
Well, I’m not reading osnews to see this kind of advertising. This really not related to the future of computing…
I wouldn’t mind if this book would be about advanced and less know features of javascript like prototyping/JS2 but this is clearly not the case.
I guess anyone who would want to learn javascript is able to browse amazon and read reviews over there if he whishes.
Thom held a gun to your head forcing you to read after complaining and complaining that they served no useful purpose?
How is a book review advertising?
I think this is a perfect site for book reviews, especially ones contributed by users. I hope to see more.
> How is a book review advertising?
Because in the URL there is “osnews” maybe to get commissions on sales, but this is ok, I’m just assuming here.
We post reviews of commercial Operating Systems.
We post reviews of commercial applications.
We post reviews of peripherals, often provided by third party sites with whom we have a relationship.
We post reviews of handhelds and phones.
These things all cost money, so do books. By this silly logic, all articles about Windows and OS X are advertisements. Seriously, people.
Well, osnews gets money from Amazon for every sale done after clicking the link from osnews.
So it’s a little bit dishonest to compare this with reviews about OSes etc.
Anyway I believe in that the reviewer was trying to be objective and doesn’t has this profit in mind, from which he presumably doesn’t see anything.
Well I wasn’t aware that `the last great book about you favourite programming language’ was part of the editorial line. Thank you for the clarification.
> We post reviews of commercial Operating Systems.
> We post reviews of commercial applications.
> We post reviews of peripherals, often provided
> by third party sites with whom we have a relationship.
> We post reviews of handhelds and phones.
And I really thank you for giving this insight on technology but I can’t remember having read such a review with a direct link to buy the feature.
Edited 2007-02-21 16:34
Many years ago I learned very basics of JavaScript programming from Thau’s JavaScript tutorial on Wired’s WebMonkey site (it’s probably still there). He’s very good at taking to the novice user through new concepts and I still feel grateful for the start his tutorial gave me. If this book’s half as good, it’ll be a great resource for the newbie!
For the more advanced user, it’s hard to beat O’Reilly’s “JavaScript: The Definitive Guide” which is sat on the desk next to me right now.
Edited 2007-02-21 14:14
“So, you’re a Java programmer. Good, our web team needs a lot of javascript…”
That statement always makes me want to scream and run out of the room. I really wish Netscape had called it webscript, or browserscript, or something like that.
Am I alone in this feeling?
Hey enrages me. I feel exactly the same way about the ‘C’ shell too.
I think the bottom line is that the people involved in hiring programmers often have so little knowledge about the subject.
[Warning, begin off-topic rant]
Where I live, .NET is the big thing. I always get these questions about whether I am a C# developer or a VB.NET developer. I try to explain to them that in the .NET world the two are almost the same. You are coding the exact same API, and that I wouldn’t trust a programmer who couldn’t translate code between the two. When I say this, all I see are glazed eyes. To the people who do the hiring, they are as different as VB6 and Visual C++. I finally just gave up trying to explain it, and just made sure I had equal experience with both.
I mean, can it really be that hard to change:
Dim frmNew as Form
frmNew = new Form()
frmNew.text = “My Form”
To:
Form frmNew;
frmNew = new Form();
frmNew.text = “My Form”;
Wow, what a magical transformation!
Granted, there are some subtle differences – keyword differences (shared vs static), initialization differences, etc, but they are trivial compared to the old days of Visual C++ vs. VB6. In fact, I think the differences are more mindset than anything – geek snobs vs. code cowboys (I’ll let you decide which is which ;} )
[End off-topic rant]
So true. Ironically, it was originally meant to be “livescript”, but later changed to javascript, because it was released at the same time as the java-enabled Netscape. Apparently, they were confused about it themselves
This is so true… I hear it all the time, people saying their site is done in Java, and the extension is .php, or programers who say they know Java, and then when you talk about JSP, netbeans, servlets, they don’t know what you’re talking about, then you say they are probably talking about Javascript, and they say “Yes, Javascript, or Java, same thing, every site uses Java these days”. Too sad.
Well, Under ECMA standard 262, it’s known as ECMAScript.
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.h…
Thanks, I’d almost forgotten.
I personally enjoyed O’Reilly’s Javascript: The Definitive Guide, by David Flanagan. It’s a sort of Javascript Bible.
http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Definitive-Guide-David-Flanagan/dp…
Actually, Goodman’s JavaScript Bible (Wiley) is a sort of JavaScript Bible. It’s a reference, not a tutorial, but it’s been indispensable to me for seven years running.
I like No Starch Press’s books. I have read many of their books, currently I’m reading Absolute OpenBSD and Debian system, javacript looks really good I’ll added to my reading list.
Someone makes a review of a book. If it’s a good critic and helps me to make a decision as to weither or not buy the book why not reward the author of the review he wrote?