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The Book of JavaScript, 2nd Edition: A Practical Guide to Interactive Web Pages


Product Description
The Book of JavaScript teaches readers how to add interactivity, animation, and other tricks to their web sites with JavaScript. Rather than provide a series of cut-and-paste scripts, thau! takes the reader through a series of real world JavaScript code with an emphasis on understanding. Each chapter focuses on a few important JavaScript features, shows how professional web sites incorporate them, and takes readers through examples of how they might add those featur… More >>

The Book of JavaScript, 2nd Edition: A Practical Guide to Interactive Web Pages

  1. #1 by Eddie Cosme Jr. on June 30, 2010 - 10:08 pm

    This book gives good clear explanations and instructions. Has great examples that you can also download from the books website. But it shows it’s age when referencing Netscape continuously.
    Rating: 4 / 5

  2. #2 by Sunnyside on June 30, 2010 - 11:58 pm

    First off, ***very*** disappointed that No Starch Press has decided to cheapen the book’s look and feel by reprinting the current batch with thinner paper (~24 or 28-lb. paper, a bit heavier than plain copier paper) compared to the nice “hardcover-book-quality” 60-lb. paper stated in the colophon, even though the colophon still lists the paper used as being 60-lbs. A previous printing of the book also had blue-colored text, which really added a welcome “visual comfort” that’s now sadly lacking. Look at a copy from the older print run in your local public library and you’ll see what I mean. It simply looks and feels like a cheaper product now.

    Having said all that, I think this is a very decent book for newbies, with a fairly “traditional textbook” approach to learning JavaScript. By “fairly traditional” I mean that its pedagogy is straightforward and the material is covered in the way you’d expect (nothing like “Head First JavaScript,” which I also recommend as a good companion learning tool to this title [since you really can't expect to learn with just one book, especially if you're a newbie to programming]). I especially like how an English-Italian translation program is developed in the later parts of the book, tying together the various JavaScript and Ajax concepts explored.

    So I would have given the book three stars for being a good, solid if unspectacular text but the cheaper paper and lack of blue ink in addition to black makes me unhappy.

    Rating: 2 / 5

  3. #3 by Midwest Book Review on July 1, 2010 - 2:17 am

    There are many books on the market which focus on JavaScript shortcuts and web applications – but this is different. It focuses on real-world examples and uses these as the starting point for explaining just how these scripts work, how to make them more efficient, and how to tweak scripts to produce the desired results. From working with cookies and alarms to learning from events and using them to tailor user actions, BOOK OF JAVASCRIPT presents the next level in Java efficiency and is a recommendation for any Java programmer or computer library reference section.
    Rating: 5 / 5

  4. #4 by Robert on July 1, 2010 - 3:46 am

    If you buy this book you will eventually learn JavaScript. Unfortunately you will learn it while you are spending hours searching the internet for the reasons why many of the examples in the book don’t work. It is unfortunate that there are so many errors in the book. Only about half of them are covered by the errata page on the books companion website. Unlike many similar books this one’s website does not have a forum for users to ask questions or submit errata. The books style is easy to understand and most explanations of the code are clear, but the errors are so frustrating that I would recommend a different text than this one.
    Rating: 2 / 5

  5. #5 by Matthew Greenberg on July 1, 2010 - 5:59 am

    Out of all the Javascript books that I have owned or found in the library, this book seems to be clearly written and easy to follow. I am a techie but have not found a Javascript book that I have liked or have found it clear enough to follow until I found this book. It starts out very slowly but this is not bad for beginners (I am included in this group).

    I agree there are some typos in the book; I have ran across a few of them but they have been minor (so far that is)…

    All of the book examples are online and can be downloaded. There are some examples that have external js files that are included online so this is not an issue…

    I just find it amazing that their are a lot of books on programming languages but most of them are either poor organized and/or written…

    Rating: 5 / 5