JavaScript Books - Page 3

JavaScript for Dummies

Emily A. Vander Veer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 71 Average rating: 2.0 of 5

There are definitely better books out there. 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I've been learning and using JavaScript for quite some time, and of all of the books I've used, this one has by far been the worst. The examples that the author uses are not very helpful, and often concepts are poorly explained. A lot of the code you will need to write will require you to creatively use the skills you've acquired to solve a problem; this book, however, likely won't equip you with the tools you need to be able to do this. If you're looking for a good place to start, I'd start with JavaScript: The Definitive Guide by David Flanagan. It does have flaws of its own, but it is a good place to start.

Editorial Review:

• Responding to reader feedback, the author has thoroughly revamped the book with more step-by-step coverage of JavaScript basics, an exclusive focus on Internet Explorer, and many complete sample scripts
• Updated to cover JavaScript 1.5, the latest release of this popular Web scripting language
• Using lots of examples, including a sample working Web site, the book shows how to create dynamic and interactive pages, build entire sites, and automate pages

Beginning JavaScript with DOM Scripting and Ajax: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: from Novice to Professional)

Christian Heilmann

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

JavaScript is one of the most important technologies on the web. It provides the means to add dynamic functionality to your web pages and serves as the backbone of Ajax-style web development. Beginning JavaScript with DOM Scripting and Ajax is an essential guide for modern JavaScript programming; its practical but comprehensive. It covers everything you need to know to get up to speed with JavaScript development to add dynamic enhancements to web pages and program Ajax-style applications.

Experienced web developer Christian Heilmann begins gently by giving you an overview of JavaScriptits syntax, good coding practices, and the principles of DOM scripting. Then he builds up your JavaScript toolkit, covering dynamically manipulating markup, changing page styling on the fly using the CSS DOM, validating forms, dealing with images, and much more. Then he takes you to advanced territory, with a complete case study illustrating how many new JavaScript techniques can work together, plus a great introduction to Ajax development.

Sams Teach Yourself Ajax, JavaScript, and PHP All in One (Sams Teach Yourself)

Phil Ballard, Michael Moncur

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In just a short time, you can learn how to use Ajax, JavaScript, and PHP to create interactive interfaces to your web applications by combining these powerful technologies.

 

No previous Ajax programming experience is required. Using a straightforward, step-by-step approach, each lesson in this book builds on the previous ones, enabling you to learn the essentials of Ajax programming with JavaScript, PHP, and related technologies from the ground up.

 

Regardless of whether you run Linux, Windows, or Mac OS X, the enclosed CD includes a complete Ajax programming starter kit that gives you all the programming tools, reference information, JavaScript libraries, and server software you need to set up a stable environment for learning, testing, and production.

 

Learn how to…

• Build better, more interactive interfaces for your web applications
• Make JavaScript, HTML, XML, and PHP work together to create Ajax effects
• Compile an Ajax application
• Create and consume web services with SOAP and REST
• Avoid common errors and troubleshoot programs
• Use popular Ajax libraries to speed up and improve common programming tasks

 

On the CD

• XAMPP for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux–an easy-to-install package to set up a PHP- and MySQL-enabled Apache server on your computer
• The jEdit programming editor for Windows, Mac, and Linux
• Prototype, Scriptaculous, Rico, and XOAD–popular JavaScript libraries for creating Ajax applications and effects
• A complete Ajax, HTML, XML, and PHP tutorial reference library in searchable PDF format
• Source code for the examples in the book

 

Phil Ballard is a software engineering consultant and developer specializing in website and intranet design and development for an international portfolio of clients. He has an honors degree from the University of Leeds, England, and has worked for several years in commercial and managerial roles in the high technology sector.

 

Michael Moncur is a freelance webmaster and author. He runs a network of websites and has written several bestselling books about web development, networking, certification programs, and databases.

 

Category: Web Development

Covers: Ajax, JavaScript and PHP

User Level: Beginning—Intermediate

 

$39.99 USA / $43.99 CAN / £25.99 Net UK

 

JavaScript Bible

Danny Goodman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

This book is not up to date 2 out of 5 stars.
42 of 46 people found this review helpful.

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.

Editorial Review:

Make your Web pages stand out above the noise with JavaScript and the expert instruction in this much-anticipated update to the bestselling JavaScript Bible. With renowned JavaScript expert Danny Goodman at your side, you’ll get a thorough grounding in JavaScript basics, see how it fits with current Web browsers, and find all the soup-to-nuts detail you’ll need. Whether you’re a veteran programmer or just starting out, this is the JavaScript book Web developers turn to again and again.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

JavaScript and Ajax for the Web, Sixth Edition (Visual QuickStart Guide)

Tom Negrino, Dori Smith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Should be called: JavaScript (& a chapter on AJAX) 2 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This is my first QSG book. I assume the layout is "feature" of the series, if so this will be my last.

Bottom line first: the title is a lie, this is a book about javascript with a chapter on AJAX; this book has good content, but the presentation will drive you insane while you read it.

Layout:
The book has a good concept but doesn't execute it well. Each page is divided into two columns, the example code is in one column, the text describing that code is in the other. This really is a great concept. It's used in analytic copies of a number of Shakespeare's plays and works well there. It works because they are conscientious about pagination, include line references, and use facing pages not columns.
Columns are a problem because each line has about three words before wrapping. The dot syntax of javascript is particularly hard to read with such short lines.
The pagination / line reference is really the biggest problem in the QSG's execution. They let the text and code flow through the columns across pages without much attention. This means you are constantly flipping forwards and backwards to see the code as you read. Without line references the flipping is not just annoying it's really more of a search.
They make two attempts to address the pagination problem: first, the code being talked about is highlighted in red; second, they reprint the code block being talked about in the text column. Neither of these is helpful. Half of the code ends up being highlighted red - at most you can scan the red blocks to figure out what that code is an example of, and what is just there to support the example. If they are going to reprint the code anyway why not just go over to a normal layout? My suggestion: use facing pages for the next edition!

AJAX:
This is not a book on AJAX. This is an introduction to javascript that includes a buzz word in its title to jump off the shelf at people. It's not even an introduction to javascript from an AJAX prospective. In fact AJAX isn't covered well in the book. For example there is very little discussion of how to navigate returned XML using javascript. AJAX is mentioned in the intro and then 'taught' in chapters 15 and 16. (Chapter 16 is just a discussion of available libraries!) You can't give AJAX top billing and then devote 10% of the actual book to it.

So why 2 stars?

I was looking for a book that assumed very little or no knowledge of javascript. I was hoping for something that would address canonical javascripting, best practices, and a bit theory behind the topics being covered. I'm self taught and wanted to see how things should be done instead of how they can be done. This book would be a darn good intro for a beginner. The theory and best practices parts were not explicitly addressed as often as I would have liked; however, they were demonstrated and covered at times.

4 star content, less 1 for layout, less 1 for title.

Editorial Review:

Need to learn JavaScript fast? This best-selling reference’s visual format and step-by-step, task-based instructions will have you up and running with JavaScript in no time. In this completely updated edition of our best-selling guide to JavaScript, leading Web and computing experts Tom Negrino and Dori Smith use crystal-clear instructions and friendly prose to introduce you to all of today's JavaScript essentials. Along the way, you'll find extensive coverage of Ajax and XML techniques, current browsers (Opera, Safari, Firefox), and more.

Visual QuickStart Guide--the quick and easy way to learn!

• Easy visual approach uses pictures to guide you through JavaScript and show you what to do.
• Concise steps and explanations get you up and running in no time.
• Page for page, the best content and value around.
• Companion Web site at www.javascriptworld.com offers sample scripts, updates, and more!

JavaScript(TM) Step by Step

Steve Suehring

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Great Book for scripters of any level! 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I'll agree with Chris from Minneapolis. This is a great book no matter what level of scripting experience you have. I had/have very little java scripting experience and with this book, it's very simple to learn in a fashion that is geared more toward real-life situations, vs. just some script that a professor or teacher wants you to write that has no meaning besides giving you work to do. GREAT BOOK, RECOMMENDED TO ANYONE OF ANY LEVEL OF SCRIPTING EXPERIENCE!

Editorial Review:

Get the hands-on, step-by-step guide to learning JavaScript for Web development. Even with no programming experience, you can teach yourself the essentials of working with the JavaScript programming language one step at a time. With STEP BY STEP, you work at your own pace through hands-on, learn-by-doing exercises. Whether you re building skills for your career or just want to customize your personal Web site, you ll learn the core capabilities and fundamental techniques for working with JavaScript and begin to create professional-looking Web sites. Includes a companion CD with code samples, data sets, and a fully searchable eBook.

Key Book Benefits

Features easy-to-follow, logically planned lessons to help you learn at your own pace

Delivers a solid understanding of how to use JavaScript to build custom Web sites

Includes a companion CD with code samples, data sets, and a fully searchable eBook

Object-Oriented JavaScript: Create scalable, reusable high-quality JavaScript applications and libraries

Stoyan Stefanov

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Once listed in the "nice to have" sections of job postings, these days the knowledge of JavaScript is a deciding factor when it comes to hiring web developers. And rightly so. Where in the past we used to have the occasional few lines of JavaScript embedded in a web page, now we have advanced libraries and extensible architectures, powering the "fat-client", AJAX-type rich internet applications.

JavaScript is the language of the browser, but it's also heavily employed in many other environments: server-side programming, desktop applications, application extensions and widgets. It's a pretty good deal: you learn one language and then code all kinds of different applications. While this book has one chapter specifically dedicated to the web browser environment including DOM, events, and AJAX tutorials, the rest is applicable to all the other environments too.

This book treats JavaScript as a serious object-oriented language, showing you how to build robust, maintainable, and powerful libraries and applications. Along the way, we cover many of the recent innovations such as AJAX, JSON, and interesting design and coding patterns. After reading this book, you'll be prepared to ace your JavaScript job interview and even impress with some bits that the interviewer maybe didn't know. You should read this book if you want to be able to take your JavaScript skills to a new level of sophistication.

What you will learn from this book?

* Learn to think in JavaScript, the language of the web browser
* The basics of object-oriented programming, and how they apply to JavaScript
* Set up and use your training environment (Firebug)
* Master data types, operators, and flow control statements
* Understand functions: usage patterns, variable scope, and built-in functions
* Closures demystified
* Create and use objects
* Understand and use prototypes
* Reuse code with common patterns for inheritance
* Understand and work with the BOM (Browser Object Model)
* The DOM (Document Object Model) - accessing, modifying, adding, and deleting nodes
* Build responsive web pages with AJAX
* JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)
* Listen and respond to browser events
* Apply design patterns to solve common problems
* Adopt coding patterns that unleash the unique power of the language
* Make your programs cleaner, faster, and compatible with other programs and libraries
* Achieve missing object-oriented features in JavaScript such as private properties and methods

Who is this book written for?

The book requires no prior knowledge of JavaScript and works from the ground up to give you a thorough grounding in this powerful language. If you do already know some JavaScript, you will find plenty of eye-openers as you discover just what the language can do.

This book takes a do-it-yourself approach when it comes to writing code, because the best way to really learn a programming language is by writing code. You are encouraged to type code into Firebug's console, see how it works and then tweak it and play around with it. There are practice questions at the end of each chapter to help review what you have learned.

Simply JavaScript

Kevin Yank, Cameron Adams

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Everything you need to learn JavaScript from Scratch!

Packed with full-color examples, Simply JavaScript is a step-by-step introduction to programming in JavaScript the right way. Learn how easy it is to use JavaScript to solve real-world problems, build smarter forms, track user events (such as mouse clicks and key strokes), and design eye-catching animations. Then move into more powerful techniques using the DOM and Ajax.

Learn JavaScript's built-in functions, methods, and properties.

Easily integrate JavaScript in your web site.

Use JavaScript to validate form entries and interact with your users.

Understand how to respond to user events.

Create animations that bring your web site to life.

Start programming using the DOM and Ajax.

Unlike other JavaScript books, modern best practices such as progressive enhancement, accessibility and unobtrusive scripting are used from the very beginning. All the code in the book is also cross-browser compatible and downloadable for free, so you can get started instantly!

Prototype and script.aculo.us: You Never Knew JavaScript Could Do This! (Pragmatic Programmers)

Christophe Porteneuve

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Tired of getting swamped in the nitty-gritty of cross-browser, Web 2.0-grade JavaScript? Get back in the game with Prototype and script.aculo.us, two extremely popular JavaScript libraries, that make it a walk in the park. Be it AJAX, drag and drop, auto-completion, advanced visual effects, or many other great features, all you need is write one or two lines of script that look so good they could almost pass for Ruby code!

Web applications are getting richer and richer, with more interaction baked in every day. But JavaScript, DOM, CSS and a full host of other Web standards are quite complex, and the result isn't always browser compliant.

The Prototype and script.aculo.us libraries are veritable treasure troves, smoothing over all the usual nitty-gritty differences between browsers, and making most common features a breeze to implement. With this book, you can quickly wield the whole power of these extraordinary libraries.

Dive into Prototype, the library that makes JavaScript so much more powerful, and it looks a lot like Ruby code. Exploring the DOM, handling events, taming AJAX, and radically simplifying most of your scripting code: it all becomes easy-and very portable-with Prototype.

When it comes to advanced UI features, script.aculo.us is every web developer's dream come true: whether you need to create auto-completed text inputs, implement in-place editors, provide customized drag-and-drop behaviors, capture your users' attention with visual effects or simply build DOM fragments more efficiently, it's all there, and lightweight too.

This book guides you through all the details of these features, letting you use many technologies on the server side, such as PHP, vanilla Ruby, and Ruby On Rails, in countless examples illustrating every aspect. Power users will also learn the design philosophies of the libraries, and how to contribute to them and augment them for their own needs.

Sams Teach Yourself JavaScript in 24 Hours (4th Edition) (Sams Teach Yourself)

Michael Moncur

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Not for complete novices.... but sufficient for an introduction 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I think a lot of us can agree that there just aren't a lot of great quality Javascript instruction books out there. Somebody make one! However, I will say that after reading this book I feel that I have a solid enough footing in the language to branch out into more complex examples. The key to learning any programming language is not simply to read these guidebooks, but to create some independent projects that reinforce what you have just learned. To get the most out of this book make sure you actually do each of the exercises at the end of each hour. The problem with this is, of course, that not all of the answers for the exercises are provided on the web site. (As a matter of fact the web site does not seem to have been updated in quite some time.) I do recommend posing questions in the website's forum, which is quite active.

TIP: If you are new to programming, don't begin your education with this book; start with an HTML/CSS primer to get you going, preferably one which gives you a taste of Javascript. Then start looking at Javascript. Having had a year-long Java course in the past, and prior knowledge of basic HTML, I'll say that this book does presume a certain level of knowledge. If I were entirely unfamiliar with syntax and terms (which the author whizzes through very quickly and often with poor explanation), then I am certain I would have been very lost about halfway through the book. The section on arrays could do with some major modification, for example. And the CSS and AJAX snippets just weren't given enough contextual treatment. All in all, if you have some basic knowledge and are looking for a guide that will give you the fundamentals, this is a satisfactory enough book.

Editorial Review:

JavaScript is one of the easiest, most straightforward ways to enhance a website with interactivity. Sams Teach Yourself JavaScript in 24 Hours, 4th Edition serves as an easy-to-understand tutorial on both scripting basics and JavaScript itself. The book is written in a clear and personable style with an extensive use of practical, complete examples. It also includes material on the latest developments in JavaScript and web scripting. You will learn how to use JavaScript to enhance web pages with interactive forms, objects, and cookies, as well as how to use JavaScript to work with games, animation, and multimedia.