Javascript Bible
I seldom extol the virtues of computer technology books but I have to say that this book because of its clarity and content has been and continues to be, a delight to work with.
I am what you might call an 'old hand' in the industry and needed to adapt my skills to embrace browser based technology for the first time.
This book explains clearly how the DOM components work together and the relationship bwtween those components and the scripting language.
I will certainly be looking out for any other books that may have been written by the author.
Gets 4 stars when I get usable "Bonus Chapters"
I'm very new to javascript (though a long time programmer in other languages) and agree that there is some additional reference material and tutorials on common tasks that might have been included. If you're already quite familiar with object languages, this will probably not be a drawback. If you're not, you will still have to struggle with many of the scripts to figure out the precise nature of its syntax and how/why object concepts and methods are rendered as they are. It might also have included a little more line-by-line explanation of exactly what some of the code syntax is doing and why it is rendered as it is. That would have helped us beginners (and probably not bothered more advanced users- they could have just skipped that material.)
So, why did I give it only 1 star? Because the main drawback is entirely unnecessary and very frustrating. There are 23 "Bonus Chapters" that do not appear in the book, but only on the e-book pdf. The e-book is great for searching specific topics and items - and for usable samples in the first 31 chapters. But it is UNPRINTABLE and CANNOT BE COPIED. This is especially troublesome for the 23 bonus chapters which do not appear in the book. Indeed, most of the practical applications are demonstrated in these chapters. The pdf permissions don't allow printing/copying even though the text contains some complex instructions and explanations and much other useful material. Without being able to have some of that material at hand in hardcopy it loses much of its value. Even the debugging tools in chapter 45 have complicated (for the novice) use instructions that are almost worthless unless you can print them and have them in front of you while you install and learn to use it.
This is just frustrating and thoughtless from the customer's point of view (and probably of no use in preventing piracy to a determined hacker - which I presume is the reason the locked permissions were done). I've written Wiley to request a printable/copyable version of at least the 23 bonus chapters. If they send it to me, I'll revise my opinion to three-stars, and if they make those chapters available to all customers who purchased the book (cd holders), in a printable version, I'll go to four or maybe even five stars. Till then, I'm stickin' to my opinion.
The best javascript book available
books on changing technologies are always out of date by 6 months to a year (a book this size is probably closer to a year). i Google when i need the latest info, just like the rest of the planet apparently.
i understand other reviewer gripes about this book, but it is still the best printed resource available. the book weighs in at a hefty 35 chapters and 5 Appendices in about 1200 pages (and yes the print is small). i found the information well organized, with a decent layout and a useable contents and index. this book tries to serve both the novice and the professional, and frankly does a pretty good job. a book this size obviously has errors, but nothing i would categorize as lethal (it's not a cookbook but has some decent template scripts to get you going). no one could write a book this size and comprehensive from scratch, this book is clearly an evolution and uses "revised" content from previous editions. i got the feeling reading this book that the authors write real code for real world apps. i thought about docking a star because it is has so much information. i seem to have got conditioned over the years to have a slight sense of dread when i have to open a large book to look something up. However, IMHO, the real value is searchable CD version of the book, hence back to 5 stars. this has 23 Bonus chapters! yes that's 23 bonus chapters which add over 500 pages. a nice touch was having references to the CD version (marked with a BC prefix) in the index of the print edition.
from a purist point of view some of the recommendations are wrong, but from a pragmatic point of view no one is going to be impressed with your W3C compliant script that runs 10-20x slower than the non-compliant one (and that's not just in IE).
inevitably a little dated but still the most comprehensive javascript book available.
This book is not up to date
I have a few javascript books already, but they are out of date. I bought this book, which claims to be published in 2007, to learn to be more DOM and W3C compliant. However, from reading this book so far, I find that the material in it are as outdated as my older books. For example, the book still encourages the use of the "innerHTML" method, which is neither a W3C recommendation, nor is it encouraged anymore. Furthermore, the book shows you to convert a "number" type to a string by doing this:
var num = 100;
num = "" + num;
That's just silly. What happened to the toString() method? How about doing this?
var num = 100;
num = num.toString();
Also the book doesn't encourage separation of structure from functionality. The book's examples have javascript all mixed together with the markup. This is clearly not the modern, correct, and recommended way to script a web page.
So far, these are the gripes I have about this book... and I'm only on chapter 6. It makes me feel like I don't want to finish this book, because I might adopt these outdated methods of scripting.
I do not recommend this book.
Good Reviews?
Just got started and got to Ch 3 and ran into a snag...page 22...lines 19 and 20 are duplicate as such:
Let's Script...
Thus, you see there is no closing tag for "
" yet the book states it complies with DHTML that all tags will be closed. Also, the "Let's Script" appears twice if you use the book example.
Additionally, the enclosed CD-ROM for "ch03.script1.htm" link is wrong as it should be "ch03.script1.html." If you are new to JavaScript, the work around is to access "My Computer," then your DVD/CD drive and "Content," then "Chap03," then "script1.html."
I think the editors and proof readers assumed .htm was the norm and overlooked "script1.html."
First script, first impression...not looking too good.
I'll keep you posted as I advance through the book.
Additionally, I tried to communicate with Wiley Publishing, Inc...but got caught in a loop as I posed a question to them and unknown to me they only allowed 80 characters, but I went over the limit and in their text block they allowed me to keep typing.
(6 reviews)
